Impunity Without Borders in Azerbaijan

Roundtable "Ending impunity" was held on Friday at the IRFS office. The event was dedicated to the International Day Against Impunity  marked on November 23.

On November 23, 2009, in the Philippines were killed 58 people, and 32 of then were journalists. This day remained in history as the day "Maquindanao, Ampatuan". So far, none of the perpetrators of this tragedy  is punished.

Emin Huseynov, director of IRFS believes it  is important to  mark this event in Azerbaijan, since on  that day two years ago,  was killed a  journalist Rafiq Tagi as a result of armed attack. He also recalled the murder  of the editor of the magazine " Monitor" Elmar Huseynov eight years ago.

To perpetuate the names of these two journalists and erecting  their bas-reliefs on the Avenue "Metbuat" from November 24 to March 2, will be a campaign  of collecting  signatures.  The action of commemoration  will be held on 23 November from 12:00 to 12:30 on the grave of Rafiq Tagi.

Then  participants exchanged views on the situation in the media and human rights. The head of the publishing house "Qanun" Shahbaz Khuduoglu about pressure on publishing, documentation and seizure of computers that still have not  been returned. He expressed regret that the democratic institutions and international organizations have supported him.

First deputy editor Rahim Hajiyev told about the situation of the newspaper "Azadlig." According to him, the power has launched open war with him. He said that next week, the newspaper again will  suspend its publication because of debts.

He also recalled about  the situation with the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDSC) training , which is also subject to pressure from the authorities. -16C04-