{"id":1495,"date":"2015-05-21T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2015-05-25T13:27:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T13:27:35","slug":"azeri-president-should-release-seven-jailed-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1495","title":{"rendered":"Azeri President should release seven jailed journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUKRAA<\/em><\/p>\n

In a letter sent today, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) call on Azerbaijan President, Ilham Aliyev, to release all seven journalists who are currently behind bars.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Download the full letter.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This photo taken Sunday, March 2, 2014, shows Azerbaijani Khadija Ismayilova, a reporter for Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan detained Khadija Ismayilova, a prominent investigative journalist, on Friday whose reporting has often featured the business dealings of top politicians in the country. (Aziz Karimov\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In recent years Azerbaijan has developed a reputation as one of the world\u2019s worst jailers of journalists. In the past 12 months numerous journalists and human rights activists have fallen victim of what appears to be a deliberate campaign to silence critical voices in the build up to the first ever European Olympics to take place in Azerbaijan in June 2015.<\/p>\n

The imprisoned journalists include:<\/p>\n

Nijat Aliyev, arrested 20 May 2012
\nAraz Guliyev, arrested 8 September 2012
\nParviz Hashimli, arrested 17 September 2013
\nSeymur Hazi, arrested 29 August 2014
\nKhadija Ismayilova, arrested 5 December 2014
\nHilal Mamedov, arrested 21 June 2012
\nRauf Mirkadyrov, arrested 19 April 2014<\/p>\n

Full details of the charges against them can be found on the Council of Europe\u2019s Platform<\/a> to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists developed in co-operation with the IFJ and EFJ.<\/p>\n

IFJ president, Jim Boumelha, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are alarmed at the scale of attacks against press freedom in a country that is a member of the Council of Europe and should abide by its principles on freedom of expression as laid down in article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur colleagues should be released immediately without condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most prominent among these is the case of Khadija Ismayilova<\/a> who was arrested in December 2014 initially on spurious charges of incitement to suicide and since replaced with charges of libel and tax evasion for which she risks up to 7 years imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Mogens Blicher Bjerreg\u00e5rd, EFJ president said:<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven Azerbaijan\u2019s record on press freedom, we fear that journalists travelling to report the European Olympics will face restriction and censorship. While we warn foreign journalists to take extra precaution during the coverage of the Olympics, we urge the government to ensure that both national and foreign journalists can exercise their rights to freedom of expression and conduct any journalistic activities freely and independently.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February it was revealed that

Hands off press freedom in Azerbaijan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See also the campaign for jailed Azeri journalist Khadija Ismailova: http:\/\/occrp.org\/free-khadija-ismayilova<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BUKRAA In a letter sent today, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) call on Azerbaijan President, Ilham Aliyev, [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-azerbaijan-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions\/1496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}