Participants in the event in Berlin will call on Merkel to raise in Baku the issue of freedom of speech
Баку/14.08.18/Turan: Before Chancellor Merkel's trip to Azerbaijan, Reporters Without Borders and the Institute for Reporters" Freedom and Safety would like to inform you about the rigorous persecution of journalists and activists under President Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan is one of the countries with most imprisoned media professionals in the world, eleven journalists and two bloggers are currently in prison for their work. Many of them are denied adequate medical treatment. Several oppositional media outlets have been closed in recent years. Even in exile, regime critics are persecuted, as exemplified by the abduction of Afghan Mukhtarli from Georgia or the threats against exiled journalists in Germany and France.
The participants of the event are going to draw Angela Merkel's attention to these problems and put these questions before official Baku during the visit.-02D-
Politics
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The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has called for the urgent release of activist Rufat Safarov from prison in Azerbaijan. It has launched a campaign in support of the Azerbaijani human rights defender. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/arbitrary-detention-and-judicial-harassment-against-rufat-safarov
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This year, the laureate of the annual Nargiz Prize, awarded for efforts in the fight for democracy, was Akif Gurbanov, chairman of the board of the Resplatforma (Platform of the III Republic) movement, who is under arrest.
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The U.S. will prohibit the issuing of visas for nearly a dozen more individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia, bringing the total number to over 100, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
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The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has expressed condolences to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, following the tragic incident in the city of Magdeburg. "We are deeply shocked by the news of the deaths and injuries resulting from the tragic incident that took place at the Christmas market in Magdeburg," the message reads.
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