Courts Dismiss Complaints from Blocked Websites

Baku / 17.09.18 / Turan: The Baku Appeal Court has undergone an appellate complaint process against the blocked sites xural.com and az24saat.org in August.

Initially, a complaint was considered by the editor-in-chief and founder of the website of Xural.com Avaz Zeynally. The representative of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies did not appear on the process.

The judge read the case materials and the decision of the court of first instance. Then the word was presented to Avaz Zeynally.

"There is no object to block the website. It's like if you were blamed for the decision of another judge. I did not write articles for which my website was banned; we took them from other resources and provided a link to these websites. As for the material I wrote, it is also not mine. I wrote a status in the social network that the grandson of Ali Hasanov, convicted of an accident, "had pleasures" in prison. Everyone knew about this. In prisons, there are many people arrested for accidents, and they are all in a difficult situation. However, this did not spread to the grandson of Hasanov. My status was used by websites as news, and I published it in Hural.

This case is absurd. I ask you to satisfy the complaint," Zeynally said.

The lawyer Sadigov supported Zeynally, asking the court to satisfy the complaint.

After that, the court considered the case and decided to keep the decision of the first instance court in force.

At another trial, under the chairmanship of Khayal Saryyev, the appeal of the editor-in-chief of the website az24saat.org Vugar Alakbarov (Gurdganli) was also considered.

Lawyer Zibaida Sadigova noted that a similar case had just been considered: "The trial court in both of these cases listened to us attentively and did not take note of our arguments. Since August 6, the Ministry of Transport, Information and High Technologies has sent a notice to a number of websites with the requirement to erase some materials, but without waiting 8 hours, it appealed to the court.

All articles mention the name of the presidential aide Ali Hasanov and the Ministry arbitrarily decided that the articles contain slander, which is unacceptable without a court decision.

In addition, the Ministry could block these articles, but it restricted the work of the websites completely. The Ministry violated the presumption of innocence, she said.

Vugar Gurdganli stated that the Ministry sent an electronic notification with the demand to remove certain materials. In our materials there is no slander or lies. Almost all the information presented by us is an excerpt from the speech of the director of the IA Turan Mehman Aliyev. I ask you to satisfy the complaint." The court considered the case and announced that the decision of the court of first instance was upheld. -0-