When the sentence was passed in 2006, I was taken to the colony No 14, 50 km away from Baku. This high security colony has a bad reputation in Azerbaijan. The place itself suppresses the person - there are only rocks around on the territory of more than dozens of kilometers. You have an impression of being isolated from the outer world.
Every day the prisoners were tortured there. People were deprived of the right to rest stipulated by the law and they lived in fear. But the colony administration was careful with me, because I am journalist. However, I could
not watch quietly blatant violation of other people"s rights. Very often I argued with the colony administration demanding end to violation of our rights, but I paid a high price for that. Chief of the colony pressured me through
the supervisors. Frankly speaking, I was afraid for my fate, because I knew very well that I was jailed by order of the authoritarian government. But I also knew that I am the centre of attention of the international organizations
and the Council of Europe. I also was glad to be the person, who struggled for democracy and freedom from the totalitarian regime.
While in colony I secretly sent my poems to Azadlig daily, where I worked before the arrest, and they were published, driving the authorities wild. I could not fall asleep after visits of my wife and children. They tried to look happy, but I knew that they try to calm me down.
It is hard to realize that in the 21st century the person, who is member of the Council of Europe, can be jailed for nothing. I told my cellmates that if it were not the Council of Europe and international organizations, the
Azerbaijani authorities would have shot us as during the Communist repressions in 1937. When my brother Ganimat Zahid, Azadlig daily"s editor-in-chief, has been arrested and defamed, I feared that they could do the same to our 85-year-old father. This thought horrified me. I think that authorities had such plans and on the eve of parliamentary elections 2005 employees of municipality pressured our father. This old man cried of insult and humiliation and the though that we can"t protect him depressed us.
Despite all that, I have gone through all the deprivations and did not give up the ideals, for which we struggled in Azadlig daily. This is because I was protected by Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ), the Council of Europe and other organizations. I was sure that I was right and it is worthy to struggle for justice.
I believe that one day we will achieve our desire and I will always remember people, who helped me and I will always help those people, who will be imprisoned on the same motives after me.
Want to say
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In a bit of historic irony, powerful oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili has managed to inspire rare unity across Georgia’s cacophonous political scene twice in his life. His money and influence forged the broad-based consolidation of opposition forces that brought him to power in 2012, and now, 12 years and three electoral cycles later, a similar pattern of opposition convergence could send him packing.
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Russian authorities and pro-Kremlin influencers have been spreading false information about alleged Reporters Without Borders (RSF) research into Nazi tendencies within the Ukrainian military, which was featured in a viral video falsely attributed to the BBC. RSF exposes the inner workings of a disinformation campaign designed to justify President Vladimir Putin's war narrative.
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I welcome respected media representatives, professional and honest journalists from places of detention. July 22 is an important day for journalists, mass media and teachers of Azerbaijan. 149 years ago, Hassan Bey Zardabi, the great educator, the most valuable thinker, the founder of our journalism, lit the first light for society to come out of darkness, giving humanity the newspaper “AKINCI.”
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