Editor-in-chief of Azerbaijani website complains about ban to leave the country

Today, Azerbaijani border guards haven't let Parviz Gashimli, the editor-in-chief of the website "Gununsesi.org", to leave for Russia, because of the ban imposed by the Baku City Prosecutor's Office, the journalist himself has reported.

The above Office summoned Parviz Gashimli for questioning back in July 2018 in connection with the coverage of the events in Ganja on his website, Mr Gashimli told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Then, they blamed me for exciting the public while covering the events in Ganja on out website. I stated that we had only performed our journalistic work by informing readers about the events that caused public interest. Nevertheless, because of the ongoing investigation, I was banned from leaving the country," Gashimli explained.

"Two months ago, I sent an open letter to Zakir Garalov, the Public Prosecutor General, with a request to lift the ban. This letter was published in many media. After that, I was invited to the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) and assured that the ban would be lifted in the near future; and there was no prejudiced or negative attitude towards me," Mr Gashimli has added.

According to his story, in order to check whether the ban had been lifted, today he tried to cross the border through the checkpoint "Khanoba" of the Khachmaz District, but he was not allowed to enter Russia.

The journalist has added that if the situation is not clarified in the coming days, he will be forced to appeal against the ban in court. "In general, the ban itself was introduced illegally, without a court judgement," Parviz Gashimli has concluded.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 30, 2019 at 04:35 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.