According to the decree of President Ilham Aliyev, the State Support Fund for the Development of Mass Media was abolished and the Media Development Agency was established as a public legal entity.
Commenting on the establishment of the new body, Bakhtiyar Sadigov, MP and editor-in-chief of the official state newspaper, Azerbaijan, said that there are no problems in the field of freedom of speech and press in the country.
"We say what we want, we write on what we want, we approach the issue as we want. There is no state-imposed censorship, either in the editorial office or in the individual work of each journalist. The law solves these issues," he said.
Fakt Yoxla examined whether Bakhtiyar Sadigov's words were true.
Currently, three journalists are in prison in Azerbaijan: Elchin Ismayilli, an employee of the Azadlig newspaper, Araz Guliyev, a journalist who writes on religious issues, and Polad Aslanov, the head of the website xeberman.com.
Although the charges against them are not related to their professional activities, their advocates say that the journalists were arrested for their professional activities.
Polad Aslanov, accused of treason under Article 274 of the Criminal Code, says that he is in prison for writing articles, which criticized the State Security Service. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
There are also journalists who have been killed in the country and the criminal case has not yet been fully opened. Elmar Huseynov, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Monitor magazine, was shot dead on March 2, 2005, at the entrance to his apartment building.
The orderers of the murder have not been identified. Although the names of the executors of the murder are known and they are internationally wanted, they have not been prosecuted or arrested.
Writer-publicist Rafig Taghi was stabbed by unknown individuals in November 2011 and died shortly afterward in the hospital.
Rafig Taghi was known for writing critical articles against both the Iranian regime and the Azerbaijani government.
Journalist Rasim Aliyev was beaten by a group of people who introduced themselves as relatives of Gabala football club striker Javid Huseynov after he wrote a critical status on social media about his treatment of a foreign journalist. Rasim Aliyev died a day later in hospital.
According to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index of the Reporters Without Borders, Azerbaijan ranks 168th out of 180 countries.
In addition, although the Constitution prohibits state censorship and guarantees freedom of the mass media, a number of restrictive amendments have been made to legislation in the area of freedom of expression and press in recent years.
The addition of Chapter III to the Law on Information, Informatization, and Protection of Information and amendments to the Law on Telecommunications have given the state body the right to block access to electronic resources within the country, officially and sometimes even without a court decision.
According to the court decision, access to the websites of RFE / RL, Azadlig newspaper, Meydan TV, Azerbaijan Saati, and Turan TV was restricted.
The criminal case against RFE / RL in 2014 is still ongoing.
The criminal case against Meydan TV, which was opened in 2016, has already been closed. However, the blocking of the website has not been lifted yet.
More than 10 journalists have been banned from leaving the country since 2013. Although the ban on some journalists has been lifted since 2019, the ban on some continues.
The European Courts of Human Rights has upheld the appeals of several journalists. The ECtHR found that the applicants' rights under Article 13 (effective legal protection) of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as Article 2 (freedom of movement) of Protocol No. 4, had been violated.
The publication of the pro-opposition Azadlig newspaper has been suspended since 2016. Moreover, critical media about the political situation in the country operate outside the country.
In 2014, the office of the Baku bureau of the RFE / RL was closed, and Meydan TV said it was forced to close its Baku office due to pressure on independent media.
In 2019, the Prosecutor General's Office appealed to the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and High Technologies to close the websites bastainfo.com, criminalaz.com, topxeber.az, and fia.az by filing a criminal case regarding "false information" and "illegal calls" spread on the Internet in connection with the assassination of the chief executive of Ganja, Elmar Valiyev, and the fact that the whole country was left without electricity as a result of the power outage in Mingachevir.
Mustafa Hajibeyli, head of bastainfo.com, Anar Mammadov, editor-in-chief of criminalaz.com, and Nuraddin Khoja (Ismayilov), editor of teref.info, were sentenced to 5 years and 6 months probation with a probationary period of 2 years.
All three editors have been accused of "openly calling for the forcible seizure of power and forcible change of the constitutional order" on their websites; however, their advocates considered the accusations unfounded.
Fakt Yoxla described the situation regarding this in detail in its previous study.
Furthermore, the Law on Martial Law, adopted in 2017, established state censorship of the mass media at the legislative level.
By the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers dated June 19 due to the pandemic and the martial law imposed on September 28, the activities of journalists were restricted.
The above-stated points show that journalists are persecuted for their professional activities, the activity of the media is restricted, and the press is censored at the legislative level.
Thus, Fakt Yoxla concludes that Bakhtiyar Sadigov’s claim is False.
