IRFS calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to stop vile attacks against female journalists

Baku/25.04.19/Turan: The Institute for Reporters" Freedom and Safety condemns the Azerbaijani authorities for the attacks against well-known journalist, Sevinj Osmanqizi living in exile in the United States and calls for an immediate end to the dirty harassment and blackmail tactics with illegal interceptions of telephone conversations and the use visual materials concerning the personal life of the journalist. IRFS demands that the Azerbaijani and US law enforcement agencies immediately investigate the alleged illegal surveillance aimed at silencing her critical voice.

IRFS is appalled by the fact that, the pro-government media in Azerbaijan are involved in these attacks, and namely the government-controlled TV channel REAL TV, which shamelessly broadcasted a recording of the wiretap of Sevinj Osmanqizi talking to another journalist living in exile in Germany, Chingiz Sultansoy. While broadcasting the illegally recorded audio in which the two journalists discuss their daily creative and work plans, the channel emphasizes that these journalists are working on finding grants to create alternative content. This content is presented to the Azerbaijani public as the anti-state activity funded by Western donors.

In the recent weeks, the authorities went even further in their aggressive rhetoric against representatives of independent media and civil society, particularly targeting female journalists. As such, intimate personal photos of the Obyektiv TV journalist, Fatima Movlanly, were distributed on social networks. These pictures were illegally seized from the journalist"s personal phone a year ago, by the police. Since then, she was blackmailed with the release of the photos in questions, if she didn"t stop her professional activities. Seeing that their threats did not bring the desired result, the authorities distributed the photos in an attempt to denigrate and unleash a campaign of hatred against the journalist.

"Unfortunately, instead of defending Azerbaijani journalists, the country's special services are trying to invade their privacy through hidden cameras, illegal wiretaps, hacking computers and smartphones, gathering material that is later used to blackmail the women critics into silence." said the Executive Director of the IRFS, Emin Huseynov. The most outrageous campaign of harassment and blackmail was conducted in 2012 against one of the prominent journalists, Khadija Ismailova, by the special services of Azerbaijan. The IRFS investigation into the matter revealed and proved that the private life of journalist was invaded and filmed without her knowledge and the blackmail campaign was carried out directly by the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan. Despite concrete evidence of the involvement of special services in the above mentioned illegal activities neither the prosecutor"s office nor the courts of Azerbaijan initiated any action in order to bring to justice the perpetrators of this dirty crime. "In general, this was to be expected since the political leadership of Azerbaijan stood behind the smear campaign against Khadija Ismailova, the same people that today, are leading a similar campaign of harassment and intimidation against another prominent female journalist, Sevinj Osmanqizi. " Huseynov concluded.

IRFS calls on the US law enforcement agencies to ensure the protection of the journalist residing in exile on their territory, and to conduct an international investigation, together with law enforcement agencies of Germany and Azerbaijan, into the alleged illegal surveillance.

IRFS also urges the OSCE and the Council of Europe, as well as the EU member states, to adequately assess the campaign of harassment, intimidation and threats against Azerbaijani women journalists. -06D-