{"id":2520,"date":"2017-08-25T15:36:54","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T15:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2520"},"modified":"2017-08-25T15:36:54","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T15:36:54","slug":"azerbaijans-last-independent-news-service-to-stop-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2520","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan\u2019s Last Independent News Service to Stop Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ZULFUGAR AGAYEV
\nBloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n

Azerbaijan\u2019s Turan agency, the country\u2019s only remaining independent news service, said it\u2019s suspending operations from Sept. 1 after its director was detained on tax evasion charges and its bank accounts frozen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Turan news agency website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mehman Aliyev was held by police late Thursday after tax officials summoned him for questioning, defense lawyer Fuad Agayev said by phone. Baku\u2019s Yasamal district court on Friday ordered him to remain in custody for three months pending trial on charges of illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion and abuse of office, Agayev said.<\/p>\n

The detention of Aliyev, who isn\u2019t related to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, marks a \u201csudden escalation\u201d in the state\u2019s \u201cpersecution of the last independent media outlet still operating\u201d in Azerbaijan, the Reporters Without Borders organization, known as RSF, said in a statement<\/a>. Azeri authorities raided Turan\u2019s Baku offices on August 16, seizing financial documents and freezing its bank accounts.<\/p>\n

Oil-rich Azerbaijan denies accusations<\/a> from rights groups that it\u2019s clamping down on media critical of President Aliyev, whose family has ruled the Caspian Sea nation for more than two decades. He succeeded his father Heydar Aliyev in 2003 and named his wife Mehriban as the country\u2019s first vice president in February after pushing through sweeping constitutional changes that extended<\/a> the presidential term. Azerbaijan ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in the RSF\u2019s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.<\/p>\n

A court in Baku ordered<\/a> the websites of U.S.-funded RFE\/RL\u2019s Azeri service blocked in May as well as those of four opposition media. Journalist Mehman Huseynov, who reported on alleged official corruption, was jailed<\/a> for two years in March after being convicted of defaming police. The U.S. demanded a \u201cfull\u201d investigation after blogger Mehman Qalandarov died in police custody in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe authorities are stepping up the pressure on Turan because they have been unable to force it to cooperate,\u201d said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF\u2019s eastern Europe and central Asia desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ZULFUGAR AGAYEV Bloomberg Azerbaijan\u2019s Turan agency, the country\u2019s only remaining independent news service, said it\u2019s suspending operations from Sept. 1 after its director was [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2520","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\/2520","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=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2522,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions\/2522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}