RWB: situation with the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan remains poor

In 2011, the situation in Azerbaijan with the freedom of speech was the worst in the past six years. For the first time after 2005, a murder of a journalist was committed – the publicist Rafiq Tagi was assassinated. This is stated in the annual report of the "Reporters Without Borders" (RWB), an international organization in defence of the press.

Early this year, threats, kidnappings and attacks have been used against journalists and active democratic youth. Journalists were attacked, and the freedom of speech was suppressed in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR). The pressure on free-thinking people in the NAR has reached, as stated in the report, "a paranoid level." This region is called the "North Korea of Azerbaijan," the RWB said.

The Press Freedom Index for 2010 ranked Azerbaijan 152^nd out of 178 countries. "Led by a 'press predator' (the RWB awards this title to leaders of the countries, where journalists are persecuted for their professional activities, – note of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent), Azerbaijan remains an authoritarian country with a corrupt way of thinking," the RWB writes.

The limited framework is, in fact, depriving the public of pluralism and maintains a constant polarization. A paradox is that the economic boom after the launch of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline has only strengthened these trends by providing the authorities with additional resources and confidence that the international community would do nothing to them. The press remains highly polarized; while the independent and oppositional media are subjected to constant pressure, the authors of the study assert.

However, the official Baku rejects the criticism. According to Ali Gasanov, the head of the socio-political department of the presidential administration of Azerbaijan, the international criticism is "biased."

According to his story, the country has all the conditions in place for the free functioning of the media; and to run a newspaper one needs no permit of the state – it is enough to notify the Ministry of Justice a week in advance.