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- 2 March 2019, 18:21
- 108
Maria Dahle, Director of HRHF, responds to MehmanHuseynov’s release from prison on 2 March.
"We are elated to see Mehman Huseynov released, walking freely as he is greeted warmly by friends, family, media and civil society; we look forward to being with him. As a journalist and human rights defender, Mehman Huseynov works to improve the society he lives in. His work is legitimate and important, and he should never have been imprisoned or faced threats and pressure for this.
To the authorities, we ask that his release marks not only an end to his imprisonment, but an end to the years of repression he has faced. We ask that they fully reinstate his rights and rehabilitate him, and lift the travel ban he has faced since 2012. We welcome indications that his identification and official documentation seized in 2013 have been returned.
We will find out fully in time whether the pressure against him has stopped and he has been treated respectfully since the new charges against him were dropped on 22 January. We also ask the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure the lawyers working to uphold Mehman Huseynov"s rights and those in other perceived politically sensitive cases are protected and able to carry out their professional functions without sanctions or threat of disbarment.
Many others remain in prison in Azerbaijan, targeted for exercising their rights to expression, association, and assembly. We urge the Azerbaijani authorities to release them and to end the targeting of journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, bloggers, and activists. We say again, a free and fair democratic society does not have political prisoners."
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- Finance
- 2 March 2019 18:58
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I have always put the names of agencies, institutions, and enterprises in quotation marks, but I never did so for Turan. Whenever I saw Turan in quotation marks in texts, I removed them.
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The preliminary report into the late December crash of an Azerbaijani passenger jet in Kazakhstan is a masterwork in delicate diplomacy, breaking no new ground in assigning responsibility for the tragedy, yet appearing to confirm that the plane was accidentally shot down by Russian air defenses without explicitly saying so. As such, the Kazakh-produced report has avoided, at least initially, provoking the ire of either Russia or Azerbaijan.
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While sorting through the archives on the eve of the 20th of January, I came across a folder with photos given to me by my late colleague Farhad Kerimov.
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On January 7, during a press conference between President I. Aliyev and local TV channels, a representative of Real TV asked: “Do you see Trump in the same boat with us...?”
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