To the death of the press in Azerbaijan

In May of this year, a very short time after the sudden death of the editor-in-chief, Rauf Talyshinsky, his daily Russian-language newspaper Echo was closed. The management explained the termination of the publication of the newspaper by financial circumstances - there is no money for publication. Human rights activist Eldar Zeynalov then bitterly announced that he had specially bought the last issue of Echo to find out the collective's opinion about what had happened, but the newspaper's journalists did not even say goodbye to the readers, and did not thank them for their long-term subscription. It's a pity, such an inglorious end ...

Arif Aliyev, the head of the journalist organization Yeni Nesil, explained the reasons for the termination of the Echo publication in the online edition of Zerkalo: "Echo" did not bring income, was secretly subsidized by the state. Rauf Talyshinsky agreed to become deputy chairman of the Party of Democratic Reforms, although he previously adhered to the journalistic principle of non-participation in political life. He was involved in the policy of a notorious figure in Azerbaijan. Apparently, through the same source, the newspaper was subsidized. It is clear that the "Echo" could not remain an independent and objective media, which inevitably affected the publications of its journalists. The newspaper was uninteresting for most readers, since it did not oppose the authorities, did not disclose the underlying shortcomings. The reader left the Echo. And after the death of Talyshinsky, funding finally stopped.

In May 2014, the daily Russian-language newspaper Zerkalo was discontinued, which in 2000 separated the team that created the Echo. A month earlier, the leading analyst of Zerkalo, Rauf Mirkadyrov, was arrested in Baku, then convicted of a false accusation of spying. After about two years, the "mother spy" was quietly sent from Baku to Switzerland, where he happily lives with his family. "When we moved from the daily to the weekly print edition, we thought we would cope. But the subsequent processes showed the impossibility of this," said Elchin Shikhli, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Aina-Zerkalo. There is no more Mirror newspaper, the Internet version is trying to replace it.

So, the Azerbaijani authorities successfully and without much fuss destroyed two large and moderately authoritative daily Russian-language newspapers in Azerbaijan, as well as all the Azerbaijani-speaking ones. The democratic world accepted what is taking place, and only made protesting statements on political and journalistic organizations. In the closed media there was no sharp criticism of the authorities, in the "Echo" in general, the leadership of Azerbaijan was treated almost brotherly, and in "Zerkalo" they did not tease the dragon, finding soft expressions in critical publications. But the "Echo" and "Mirror" did not fall to the open sycophancy and daily lies, absolute power control over the editors-in-chief was not.

Practically the power eliminated other Azerbaijani mass media by using the police and courts. On June 4, the Supreme Court rejected a cassation appeal against the blocking of the websites of Radio Azadlig, the Azadlig newspaper, as well as TuranTV broadcasting from abroad, and the Azərbaycan saatı program.

Among the prisoners in Azerbaijan there are many journalists, the most famous are the kidnapped and brought from Afghanistan Afghan Mukhtarly, videobloger Mehman Huseynov, Azadlig correspondent Ziya Asadli and others.

"All basic freedoms are ensured in Azerbaijan, including freedom of the press, which is absolutely free," President Ilham Aliyev said in January 2018. But in the annual report of the Freedom House international organization Freedom of the 2017, Azerbaijan is among the ten worst violators of press freedom.

Does someone from the above says untruth? Whoever it is, does not matter to readers who have lost the opportunity to open the newspaper every day to find news and opinions on important events in it. And when they say that the death of the printed press is an objective process, I want to show photographs taken in Moscow, London and Istanbul metro, where passengers read local newspapers.