Azernews.Az

BAKU – International rights group Human Rights Watch has claimed "the attacks on free speech" in Azerbaijan threaten to undermine the legitimacy of parliamentary elections scheduled or November 7.

"A vibrant public debate is crucial to free and fair elections," said Giorgi Gogia, South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "But you can't have a free and fair vote when the people who report the news are in jail or have been harassed into silence."

The report, released Tuesday, alleges that the Azerbaijani government is using criminal laws and violent attacks to silence dissenting journalists.

"Dozens of journalists have been prosecuted on criminal and civil defamation and other criminal charges. Police have carried out physical attacks on journalists, deliberately interfering with their efforts to investigate issues of public interest," HRW claimed.

The 94-page report, "Beaten, Blacklisted, and Behind Bars: The Vanishing Space for Freedom of Expression in Azerbaijan," says the government should free imprisoned journalists and repeal criminal libel laws "that allow public officials and others to bring criminal charges against journalists and activists". It also should prosecute violence or threats against reporters, HRW said.

Azerbaijan abolished official state censorship in 1998. "However, the government has used other, less obvious means to restrict freedom of expression and the media," HRW said. The report said legislative amendments in 2009 restricted journalists' ability to use video, photo or sound recording without explicit consent of the individual being recorded or filmed, even at public events. The government also banned all foreign radio broadcasting on FM frequencies.

"Unnecessary restrictions should be removed, and the foreign broadcasts should be allowed to resume," HRW said.

In said that in the past several years, officials have brought dozens of defamation charges against journalists, and in some cases, against human rights defenders.

HRW claimed that criminal defamation laws "pose an inappropriate risk of chilling free speech and should be abolished".

"Criminal penalties for defamation are an unnecessary and disproportionate response to allegations that damage has been done to an individual's reputation, particularly where the issue is of significant public interest or involves public figures. Politicians and other public figures are expected to tolerate wider and more intense scrutiny of their conduct than private individuals."

HRW termed as "apparently politically motivated" the case against Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder and editor-in-chief of two Azerbaijani newspapers.

The editor-in-chief of the Russian-language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani-language daily Gundalik Azerbaijan was sentenced in 2007 to eight-and-a-half years in prison on charges on defamation, inciting ethnic hatred, threatening terror and tax evasion. Fatullayev appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which has ordered the government to release him.

HRW also referred to the case of two jailed bloggers, who were "well-known for criticizing Azerbaijani government policies".

A Baku court in November 2009 sentenced Emin Milli, 30, an ANTV Online TV blogger and coordinator in the youth organization Alumni Network, to two-and-a-half years in prison, while video blogger Adnan Hajizade, 26, was sentenced to two years in prison. The activists were charged with hooliganism and an assault on two other men. However, some international rights champions claimed that the bloggers’ arrest was due to their critical writings on the Internet.

HRW claimed that legislative amendments and executive decisions have further restricted freedom of expression in Azerbaijan. These include the 2009 constitutional amendments and the ban, also in 2009, on foreign radio broadcasting on FM frequencies, which pulled the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty off the air.

The report also claimed the authorities have condoned the publication of a "black list of racketeering newspapers" by the media watchdog Press Council.

The leader of opposition Musavat party Isa Gambar has told Radio Liberty that the report allegedly reflects the realities in Azerbaijan.

He said that obviously, freedom of speech and media is one of the conditions for ensuring democracy, human rights protection and conduct of fair elections.

"Human Rights Watch is right, and the experience of past years shows that the incumbent government does not comply with such calls and recommendations, because they realize that if there was free speech amid so much public discontent, the authorities would lose the elections and be sidelined. Therefore, I do not expect the authorities to abide by these recommendations on their own free will."

According to Gambar, complying with these suggestions requires either hard-line struggle of the people or firm adherence of international organizations comprising Azerbaijan to their founding principles.

Fazayil Aghamali, the chairman of pro-government Ana Vatan party, said HRW’s report was unequivocally biased and this attitude has long been the same.

Aghamali said there was transparent environment in Azerbaijan ahead of the parliamentary elections and all sides involved are enjoying equal conditions.

"Human Rights Watch’s questioning these elections in its report is now questioning its very existence.

"I am astonished that in this and similar reports biased and non-objective feedback toward Azerbaijan has been continuously provided for public judgment, and they are trying to damage Azerbaijan’s image [on the world stage], Aghamali said.