Restrictions on the Internet is a result of an agreement of the authorities and providers

Problems of the fight against cyber crime in Azerbaijan were Discussed on Tuesday at a roundtable: “On-line critical voices: human rights activists and media cyber-security.” The event was organized within the campaign "Expression Online Initiative".

According to the head of the Club for human rights, Rasul Jafarov, the goal of the campaign is to study problems of the Internet in Azerbaijan, and to make recommendations on ways to resolve them.

The Director of the IRFS, Emin Huseynov, reminded about the mass attack in January of this year on a number of public and private sites, which showed that the question cyber-security is on an amateur basis.

The roots of the problem are that cyber security is not ensured by the international media licensing, and other anti-virus programs.

In this sphere it is necessary to apply the system of Western liberal standards, the development of training facilities in the area of ​​cyber security, and to train personnel.

However, the attention at the forum was focused on suppression of critical voices on the Internet, and in particular the strengthening of the last two years of attacks on the site of “Azadlig” newspaper. During this period, the base of the site was broken; the reason for this became the criticism of the editorial policy of the authorities.

The editor of "Azadlig" newspaper Rahim Hajibeyli told about continuing attacks on the site of the newspaper. In March and May there were attempts to intercept passwords and panels of the website. According to Hajibeyli, attacks on the newspaper web site come from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies.

The government increasingly seeks to regulate and restrict the free flow of information in the Internet, what promotes the establishment of government censorship of the Internet.

      The representative of the international organization Article 19, Rebecca Vincent indicated that the closure and restriction of the access to sites occurs in complex and sensitive political moments. She said: There have been reports of blocking and filtering of critical websites in Azerbaijan at crucial and sensitive political moments, including allegations that these measures occurred following informal communications between state agents and ISPs. If true, such actions would constitute a clear attack on freedom of expression. International human rights standards stipulate that:  The mandatory blocking of a website should always be ordered by a court;  Court orders should always be limited in scope, i.e. targeted at particular web pages rather than an entire site;  Permissible restrictions should be content-specific;  Generic bans on the operation of certain sites and systems are not compatible with international law; and   Prohibiting a site or an information-dissemination system from publishing material solely on the basis that it may be critical of the government is not a permissible restriction under international law. Indeed, this is akin to censorship.

Director of Media Rights Institute (MRI) Rashid Hajili said that the state should equally apply to attacks on government and private websites. "If a cyber attack on the site of the state agencies is regarded as a crime, then the same attitude should be on private sites," the expert believes.

Blogger Ali Novruzov focused on the challenges of creating in social networks false profiles, and noted the need to apply security systems.

The opinion of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies remained unknown as its representatives did not attend the event. 

Azerbaijan joined the Convention on Cyber crime of the Council of Europe in 2008.  This document, signed in 2001 requires the harmonization of national legislations in the field of cyber-crime.

The Azerbaijani authorities pledged to develop national standards for information security based on relevant international standards, to create a state structure for electronic security.-16C06-