Presentation of the site expressiononline.net

The presentation of the website campaign Expression Online Initiative expressiononline.net took place on Tuesday in the Media Center of the Institute of Reporters Freedom and Safety (IRFS.) According to the coordinator of the company Rasul Jafarov, the 7th meeting of the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held in November this year in Baku. The purpose of the launching the site is to inform the local and international community about the state of the Internet in Azerbaijan.

Jafarov said that in October, the company will prepare a report on the situation in Azerbaijan in the field of IT, management, and Internet freedom. All information about the  company will be posted on expressiononline.net.  A hot line: (+99412) 4088002, (050) 508 78 87 will operate.

Director of the Institute of Reporters Freedom and Safety (IRFS) Emin Huseynov, said that the site functions in Azerbaijani and English, there is a declaration of freedom and Internet navigation to the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF); During the next two week site expressiononline.net will work in full scale.

he described the situation with the freedom of the Internet in Azerbaijan as partly free. According to Huseynov, Azerbaijan on this issue is behind Georgia, Russia and Turkey.

He believes that words and actions of the government of Azerbaijan do not coincide. Thus, contrary to the claims of officials on access to the Internet, the number of  internet users is 65% of population,  but the actual number of users does not exceed 40%, Huseynov said.

Jafarov said that the initiators of the campaign turned to the presidential administration and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies to monitor the state of the Internet in the regions, as local authorities prevent  conducting monitoring by civil society. According to Jafarov, the administration and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies expressed interest in such  cooperation.—16C--