On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, representatives of NGOs and independent journalism in Azerbaijan laid flowers to the monument chief editor of the magazine Monitor, Elmar Huseynov, who was murdered by hired assassins March 2, 2005.
Laying flowers at the memorial of Elmar Huseynov has become a tradition, not only on May 3 , but on other days of journalistic dates, said the Director of the agency Turan, Mehman Aliyev, speaking at an impromptu rally, which is also traditionally held when visiting Elmar’s obelisk.
According to him, neither the report by Freedom House, nor the Reporters without Borders report can convey the pain that Azerbaijani journalists experience, daily confronting with the suppression of freedom of speech.
"Free Press is destroyed and almost all the media have been bought and serve the interests of elite groups," said Aliyev.
A new trend in journalism is the use of media structures of elite groups in the internecine struggle. "There are proofs for this," he said.
The head of the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety, Emin Huseynov, called depressing the situation in the light of the arrest of the Zerkalo newspaper columnist, Rauf Mirkadirov, and suspension of the daily edition of the publication.
Huseynov said that over the last year the institute recorded deterioration in all areas, in particular the legislative restriction of freedom of speech and judicial harassment of journalists.
At the beginning of 2014 in the country in prison were 11 journalists and bloggers, said the coordinator of the Media Rights Institute Khalid Agaliyev, calling unprecedented the pressure on the social network of bloggers over the last year.
The international human rights organization Freedom House put Azerbaijan at the 183rd place in the ranking of press freedom in the world.
The media have a further decline due to increased government control over the Internet and correspondence of journalists and bloggers; blocking sites, interference in the satellite broadcasting of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, the report notes.
All the speakers sounded the idea that in spite of the serious condition of independent Azerbaijani journalists, global trends in the Internet, new information technologies and information society offer hope for optimism. -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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