In Baku, about 20 journalists attend protest action

Today, about two dozen staff members of the edition offices of the opposition newspapers "Azadlyg" and "Yeni Musavat" held a picket in front of the office of the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) "Qasid", which distributes the media. According to Rakhim Gadjiev, First Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper "Azadlyg", the distributor's failure to pay the debt puts the media in a difficult situation.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported that at the picket, the journalists urged the "Qasid" to pay the debt to a number of editions. MP Mirkazym Kazymov, a representative of the company, came out to the protesters. He explained the arrears by the economic problems, faced by the "Qasid." He promised to solve all problems till the end of the year.

"Starting from April, the company 'Qasid' promises to return the money. However, till present, the company did not return anything. And we do not believe the today's promises. However, we will see, what will happen next," Rakhim Gadjiev said.

According to him, failure of the "Qasid" to pay the debt to the "Azadlyg" put the newspaper in a difficult situation.

"Starting from September 3, the state publishing house 'Azerbaijan' urges us to repay arrears for utilities and printing costs, and from time to time, it threatens us to cease printing our newspaper and to take away rooms, rented by the edition. The amount of our debt to the publishing house is approximately equal to the amount of debt of the 'Qasid' to be paid to us," Rakhim Gadjiev has added.

He believes that the problem has a political background.

"The 'Qasid' complains about economic problems. Yes, we do know that the company faced the problem of elimination of its kiosks. However, at the same time, the company pays its debts to the pro-government newspapers, and it fails to pay our money to us," the First Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper "Azadlyg" has added.

According to him, on the other hand, the "Qasid" is a state-owned company, like the publishing house "Azerbaijan". "If they want, they could make cross-cancellation of debts and leave us alone," Rakhim Gadjiev has noted.

According to Rauf Arifoglu, Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper "Yeni Musavat", from selling newspapers, the company "Qasid" receives an income of 30-40 percent of their price. "The company takes its interest and fails to pay our money to us. We demand that starting from next week, they began to pay money to us for the sale of newspapers," Rauf Arifoglu has emphasized.

The edition office of the newspaper "Yeni Musavat" owed the publishing house 8600 manats (about 8600 euros); however, it is unable to pay the amount, since it cannot get 10,000 manats (about 10,000 euros) from the "Qasid". This was explained by Rauf Arigoflu.

Mirkazym Kazymov, the head of the company "Qasid", explained the problems by the financial difficulties and by the fact that the state enterprises (he did not specify their names) owe them. According to Mirkazym Kazymov, in Baku, 100 out of 320 kiosks of the company have been removed and replaced with new ones that do not take the media out of the wholesale network of the company "Qasid" or take them in small quantities.

The protest action took place without police intervention.