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Azerbaijan is once again among the non-free countries in the World Press Freedom Index
Baku/03.05.22/Turan: On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published its traditional World Press Freedom Index. The survey reflects world's general processes in the press sphere as well as the situation in each country.
The 20th edition of the RSF Press Freedom Index assesses the press environment in 180 countries and regions, revealing the serious problems in the media environment where regulations are lax, disinformation channels are widespread due to social media networks.
As for the international arena, there is an open confrontation between democratic and authoritarian countries.
Added to this can be that in many countries, the media are controlled by the authorities or by oligarchs. Within the year, the number of countries in such a state has increased. Thus, 12 countries are in the red part of the list - these are countries with non-free press, including Belarus (153rd place), Azerbaijan (154th), Russia (155th). It should be noted that a year ago Azerbaijan was on the 166th position. The improvement in the rating does not at all mean any changes in the state of the press or the policy of the authorities. There is simply no one to suppress.
The worst situation is in North Korea (180th place), Eritrea (179th), Iran (178th), Turkmenistan (177th) and China (176th).
When determining the level of press freedom, RSF experts took into account political, economic, legislative and other factors in each country, as well as the policies of their governments.
In this sense, the Scandinavian countries, led by Norway, turned out to be the freest countries once again. Estonia (4th place) and Lithuania (9th) are among the ten freest.
At the last place on the European continent it is Greece (108th place) that has overtaken Bulgaria (91st). This evolution and this disparity is reflective of three main trends: first, journalists in the European Union are being murdered again - Giorgos Karaivaz in Greece and Peter R. de Fries in the Netherlands were shot dead in cold blood, in completely Mafia-style. The perpetrators of the murders of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta (78th) and Jan Kuciak in Slovakia (27th), have still not been convicted.
In eastern Europe, besides the human tragedies, the war Russia is waging in Ukraine has had devastating consequences for press freedom. In the first month of the Russian offensive, which began on February 24, 2022, at least five journalists and media workers were killed by shelling. The Russian army in the occupied territories deliberately targeted news sources and tried to coerce local media. In Russia itself, the government has imposed total control over information, imposing extensive military censorship, blocking the media, and persecuting recalcitrant journalists and forcing them to emigrate en masse.
In the Caucasus countries, media outlets are sometimes blocked by the Russian regulator when their articles displease the authorities, and media in Central Asia are pressured by local authorities to be more "neutral" in their coverage of the conflict.
In Turkey, the super-presidential system and authoritarianism of Recep Tayyip Erdogan are accompanied by denial of press freedom and interference in the judicial system. -0-
Politics
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Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
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He expressed his willingness to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the border between the two countries. "A meeting with Ilham Aliyev could take place at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I am open to such a format," Pashinyan said at a press conference today. According to Pashinyan, Armenia recently presented another proposal for a peace treaty to Azerbaijan.
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On August 31, Azerbaijan observes a "day of silence" before the Sunday’s early parliamentary elections for the unicameral Milli Majlis. All electoral campaigning is prohibited 24 hours before the voting. The early elections were initiated by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. This decision was motivated by the overlap of the scheduled elections in November with the global UN forum - the COP20 climate conference taking place in Baku.
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On August 30, at approximately 22:55, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor was disconnected from the country's power grid, as reported by the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The shutdown was caused by a lightning strike, which triggered the plant's safety systems to switch the station to a safe shutdown mode. Currently, the plant's staff is working on restarting the facility.
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