IRFS: elections were held in total violation of freedom of expression

Presidential elections in Azerbaijan were accompanied by massive violations of freedom of expression. This is stated in the statement of the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety, which monitored the elections.

 "The government should ensure the right of citizens to freely express their opinions and to exercise their right to choose," IRFS said in the statement. However, over the past week, violations were found in the work of social media, content filtering violations of the law on broadcasting, and in some cases there were attempts to interfere in the activities of journalists. All this is an indication of the regime suppression of criticism of election fraud."

The electoral process was accompanied by large-scale disturbances and severe measures of the authorities that exclude opposition candidates' opportunities to compete in equal conditions.

The opposition was left out of the pro-government media, and a number of journalists were targets of physical attacks and police, while state administrative resources were used en masse to support Ilham Aliyev.

Until the day of the elections, in Azerbaijan were arrested nine journalists, two bloggers and two human rights defenders, and there was an atmosphere of impunity for attacks against journalists. More than 30 such cases were recorded.

IRFS has expressed particular concern about the following offenses:

- Following the CEC announcement of preliminary results of the voting, TV broadcast the speech of the incumbent President Ilham Aliyev and did not give an opportunity to the candidate occupying the second place - Jamil Gasanli, which is a violation of the Broadcasting Act;

- Public television did not maintain consistently its functions of the public broadcaster. In violation of Article 7 of the Law on Public TV, this channel did not cover press conferences of local NGOs that monitored the elections.

OTV is actually no different from the state TV and does not serve the interests of society and the authorities.

In violation of professional ethics, the TV channels have distorted press conference of the ODIHR observation mission.

The post election press conference of Jamil Gasanli was not shown on TV, including ITV. This is a violation of Article 3 (Principles of Broadcasting) and 40 (rights and responsibilities of the broadcaster) of the Broadcasting Act.

On election day, IRFS witnessed hostility to journalists in Baku, Ganja, Gazakh , Guba, Lankaran, Masalli, Shamkir, Sumgait and Yevlakh .

Security officials and commissioners prevented journalists from monitoring the voting and the counting of votes.

In addition, entry to Azerbaijan was denied to journalists that previously criticized the government.

IRFS urged the authorities to eliminate the above shortcomings and ensure the rights of the media and the implementation of the law. International organizations are required to make Azerbaijan enforce its own commitments. -06/16D-