State Foundation of Media does not allocate funds to newspaper Azadlig

Baku/01.04.14/Turan : On 31 March a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the State Foundation of Mass Media under the President of the country took place. It was decided to finance 34 newspapers, at the same time denied the leading opposition newspaper, Azadlig.

The Foundation motivated the refusal that it intends to check the documents and monitor the publications of the newspaper, and then draw a conclusion about the possibility of providing assistance. What the Foundation is going to monitor is not clear.

Note that 99 % of the newspapers that have received aid are pro-government publications or media cooperating with the authorities. The total amount of the aid is 652,500 manats or 832,000 dollars.

12 newspapers received 30,000, 9 newspapers received 20,000, 3 received 15 000, 4 received 10,000, 1 received 5,000 and 5 newspapers received 5,500.

Most of these newspapers are small circulation (1-4 thousand) and not daily. Much of these media are considered close to the main ideologue of the authorities, Ali Hasanov. Among the newspapers there are newspapers of the ruling party and another pro-government party. - 03B-