Foundation "Marshal" condemns haqqin.az of violation of journalistic ethics

The German Marshall Fund issued a statement condemning the  publication  on haqqin.az. On May 24, Ozgur Unluisarchy, the head of the Ankara Office of the German Marshall Foundation gave an interview to the site haqqin.az,  and later it was published along with an additional "analysis."

"The authors of both materials not only perverted statements of Unluisarchy, but also added a completely fictitious details in the text, including the title.

Marshall Foundation regarded it  as a violation of journalistic ethics, and condemned as an attempt to cast doubt on the credibility of the organization and its employees," the statement read.

In turn, the site editor, Eynulla  Fatullayev, told Turan agency on the matter:

"On May 24,  the correspondent of our site, Zaur Rasulzade, interviewed the regional Director of the U.S. Marshal Foundation.  Asking the  reporter's question: “Do you see similarities between the Assad regime and the regimes in the countries of the CIS, in particular in Azerbaijan?”, the Turkish expert said, “Yes,  they are  identical  regimes.”

As an editor of this material I gave the title " The Head of the American Foundation compared Aliyev’s regime with  Assad’s regime," based on the words  said  by an expert to our correspondent.

Two hours later, after we published the material, the  Turkish expert called  our office and asked  me to change the title of the interview. I refused his request because, based on the principle of journalistic freedom,  I have a right to chose  the title which  is more relevant to the interview.

On the same evening the Turkish expert invited me to a meeting. Together with  Zaur Rasulzade  I came to the meeting with  the Turkish expert with a voice recorder on which I had recorded our conversation. It was clearly heard that he said that the two regimes are similar. Judge asked me to remove the material, because he was concerned over the activities of the Fund in Azerbaijan in the future. I  removed the material from the site, but on the next day he called again and asked to remove it from the archive, but  I refused. I told him that if he wants to give a new interview, I will give  his space  on the website where he can refute his previous thoughts. However,  Unluisarchy said that denial  could be misunderstood by readers," said Fatullayev.  -02D-