Media Development Agency did not respond to Turan on the merits

Baku/05.10.22/Turan: The Media Development Agency (MDA) sent a letter to Turan, in which they responded, as they believe, to a request about source of complaint of journalist Aydin Mammadov.

Recall that the owner and editor of two websites ("Şəki Ensiklopediyası" and "Ipəkçi"), Aydin Mammadov, who lives and works in Sheki, has been demanding explanations from the MDA for four months about reasons for the selective state financing of private websites and other media in Azerbaijan.

The regional websites created by Mammadov remained outside of state aid, despite the fact that, as he reported in Turan, media with less public importance and the number of subscribers function at the expense of the state. Mammadov's requests, repeatedly sent to the MDA, also contain other issues important to society that characterize the activities of the Media Development Agency.

Turan hoped to receive MDA clarifications and publish them, since Aydin Mammadov's questions are of great public importance. However, the response from the MDA said that Mammadov repeatedly addressed the organization at different times, and received oral and written explanations there. He was even accepted into the MDA and received exhaustive answers there," they told us in a letter.

However, there is not a word in the official document about the essence of the answers they claim to have given to the journalist Mammadov. Meanwhile, the Turan Agency would like to know what successes the Azerbaijani electronic and print press has achieved thanks to the creation of the MDA on January 12, 2021. 

Note that 22 months have passed since that day, following which Azerbaijani journalists have received the Law "On Media" containing new barriers to professional activity, in addition to the previous obstacles. And what about the successes? Are there any media outlets in Azerbaijan that have been awarded prestigious international awards for professionalism and objectivity during the work of the MDA?

Since January 2021, the criminal prosecution of journalists has been underway in the country, and as Aydin Mammadov writes in an appeal to the MDA, the state financial support is provided to pro-government media. The distribution of state funding takes place in private on the basis of criteria invented for screening out independent media," he believes.

Turan Agency does not consider the MDA letter to be an answer to the actual questions posed by A.Mammadov, and asks for a detailed, exhaustive official response.

Aydin Mammadov 's Websites: "Şəki Ensiklopediyası" (https://shaki.info /) and the newspaper "Ipəkçi" (https://ipekchi.info /)