In Azerbaijan, unidentified blackmailers continue pressure on journalist Khadidja Ismailova

In Azerbaijan, persons, who earlier blackmailed Khadidja Ismailova, the staff member of the Azerbaijani Office of the Radio Station "Radio Freedom", threatening to disseminate her intimate filming, executed their threats on March 14.

A video on the private life of the journalist, shot by a hidden video camera in one of the apartments, is published on the website, allegedly belonging to the "Musavat" Party.

It turned out that the website was a malicious fabrication of the criminals. The "Musavat" Party and the newspaper "Yeni Musavat" stated that they had nothing common with the website and condemned the provocation against the well-known journalist.

Khadidja Ismailova believes that the blackmail is directed not only against her personally, but against freedom of speech and is associated with a range of journalist investigations of Azerbaijani Office of the Radio Station "Radio Freedom". At the same time, the journalist has emphasized that all her investigations relate to the "corruption among top-ranking officials."

The monitoring group of the human rights organizations of Azerbaijan has strongly condemned the fact of invasion into the private life of the journalist Ismailova.

"The monitoring group demands to identify and punish the persons, who interfere in the private life of the women-journalist," said Novella Djafaroglu, the head of the Society for Women's Rights Protection.

Law enforcement agencies avoid commenting on the dissemination of materials relating to the private life of the independent journalist.