European NGOs worry about media freedom in Azerbaijan

According to the Council of Europe's Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and the Journalists' Safety, threats to the media freedom have intensified in Azerbaijan.

The report released by 15 media engaged in defending the media freedom and partnering with the above Platform has shown a growth of the number of alarming warnings received by the Platform concerning serious threats to the media freedom. The Platform's report was distributed on April 27 by the press service of the Council of Europe.

In particular, in 2021, as compared with 2020, the number of alarming signals increased by 41%, from 200 to 282 cases. Along with some other countries, the report also focuses on problems with the media freedom in Azerbaijan, and points to keeping in custody four journalists convicted in connection with their professional activities. These are Afghan Sadygov, Aslan Gurbanov, Elchin Mamed and Polad Aslanov.

The report is particularly concerned about the growing judicial intimidation and abuse of defamation lawsuits aimed at silencing the media.

The authors of the report have also pointed to the use of spyware in shadowing journalists. In particular, Azerbaijan occurred in the centre of a scandal with the Pegasus software, which was used to spy on journalists.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 28, 2022 at 05:45 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.