Coverage of the Military Escalation in the Middle East in Azerbaijani Media

Azerbaijan is entering another phase of institutional restructuring of its media sector. On June 16, during a meeting of the Human Rights Committee of the Milli Majlis, a package of amendments to the Law on Media was introduced the merger of two key regulatory bodies — the Media Development Agency and the Audiovisual Council — into a single state institution.

Every year on May 3, the world marks World Press Freedom Day — a date meant to remind us of the value of independent journalism. But in 2026, this day increasingly sounds less like a celebration and more like a diagnosis.

On April 30, the international organization for the protection of the press, Reporters Without Borders, published the World Press Freedom Index, an annual report on the state of press freedom.

In 2025, the Council of Europe published a report on the state of media freedom in Europe titled “On the Tipping Point.” The document, “On the Tipping Point: Press Freedom 2025,” states that last year 344 alerts concerning serious threats to media freedom were recorded across Europe.