Media Development Agency denied registration to some media outlets

Baku/04.11.22/Turan: Since October 14, 2022, the Media Development Agency (MDA) has been accepting applications for state registration of Azerbaijani media. However, the MDA refuses this to some media outlets, said lawyer Khalid Agaliyev.

The reason for the MDA refusal is Article 74.1.2 of the "Law on Media" concerning the duration of media functioning.

This Article, along with others, was rejected by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe which stated that such requirements cannot be made in respect of Council of Europe member-countries, Agaliyev said.

Article 74.1.2 requires media outlets to have a certain duration of operation (fəaliyyət davamlılığı). However, no criteria for determining this duration is specified. "Such a requirement restricts freedom of expression and is nothing but censorship," Agaliyev said.

"Among the media that were denied registration, there are those that started working at a time when the leaders of the Media Development Agency went to school, and these journalists were already known and the courts ruled against them. Therefore, the state then recognized these media and journalists, the Agency refuses register,” Agaliev said.

To his thinking, soon we should expect lawsuits on the claims of rejected media.

On the Agency's website, in the "statistics" section, no names of registered and rejected media outlets are reported.

Turan turned to the Agency with a request to report the number of rejected media outlets and the reasons for the refusal of registration. -0-