In Baku, lawyers see bias in court's position on case of website blocking

In Azerbaijan, lawyers associate the blocking of websites of oppositional media with the authorities' attempt to introduce censorship in the country. According to the lawyers, the authorities 'claims have provoked the publications criticizing the regime, but the court ignores the defendants' arguments.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Centre for Electronic Security (CES) of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan has requested the court to block a number of opposition websites.

The case was considered on May 1. The plaintiff submitted to the court "only headlines of publications, because of which the officials require to block the websites," noted advocate Adil Ismayilov, a staff member of the Azerbaijani service of the "Radio Liberty" (azadliq.org).

Among others, the plaintiff's claims arose from the publications "The dark business of the Geidar Aliev Foundation in Romania", "The Aliev regime has no future, and it will be considered only as an authoritarian usurper", "The Aliev's half-faced decree on pardon causes discontent and questions", "The Baku regime is corrupted, authoritarian and immersed in the economic crisis", and "Religious threat and authoritarianism as mutual donors". Besides, the plaintiff's claims were also based on suicide materials.

According to the advocate, "none of those publications contain violation of the law."

The Prosecutor's Office has pointed out that "those publications contain calls for undermining stability and overthrowing the constitutional order."

The authorities actually "declared free press reporters to be enemies," stated Ali Kerimli, the leader of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA).

The international organization for the protection of journalists "Reporters Without Borders" (RWB) has condemned the blocking of five leading independent news websites in Azerbaijan.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.