PACE: Media freedom under serious threat in Azerbaijan

PACE has expressed its concern at the many cases of serious threats to media freedom in Europe listed by the Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists, set up by the Council of Europe in 2015.

A resolution adopted on January 24  by the Assembly, on the basis of a report by Volodymyr Ariev (Ukraine), highlights the death of 16 journalists since January 2015 following acts of violence in the member States.

PACE is particularly concerned about “the dramatic situation of media and journalists in Turkey” and calls on the Turkish authorities to “release from detention all journalists who have not been indicted for actively participating in terrorist acts” and to “review emergency decrees” in so far as they order the seizure of media companies and allow the arrest of writers and media staff.

The parliamentarians also highlight the worrying situation in the Russian Federation, the Crimean Peninsula occupied by Russia, and in the eastern parts of Ukraine, and reiterate their concern with regard to retaliation against media in Azerbaijan, deploring in particular the use of criminal laws against journalists and bloggers.

In particular the Assembly calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to:

- cease targeting the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) and guarantee necessary conditions for the organisation to be able to operate freely in the country;

- stop harassment against independent blogger and IRFS Chairman Mehman Huseynov, return his identification documents and investigate allegations of ill-treatment against him;

- drop the criminal case against independent media outlet Meydan TV, refrain from pressuring its staff and contributors and lift all travel bans imposed on them;

-  lift all investigations against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and allow its office in Baku to carry out its normal activities. 

The Assembly also regrets the fact that media freedom is absent in other territories of member States which are de facto controlled by separatist regimes, namely in Nagorno-Karabakh of Azerbaijan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia of Georgia, and Transnistria of the Republic of Moldova. -02D-