April 17, 2009

His Excellency Ilham Aliyev
President
Republic of Azerbaijan
19 Istiglaliyat St.
370066 Baku
Azerbaijan

Your Excellency:

The World Press Freedom Committee —an organization representing 44 press freedom groups from throughout the world— congratulates you and your wife, First Lady Haydar Aliyev, for enacting the “Pardon Act” that on April 9 freed journalist Sakit Zadikhov, who had been imprisoned since June 23, 2006. But we also need to remind you that at least four other Azeri journalists remain in prison in your country.

And all of them, including Zadikhov, paid with their freedom just for exercising their duty to keep the public informed. Zadikhov was imprisoned after a top official of the ruling party allegedly demanded that he be silenced. Zakhidov had been a tough critic of some public officials in the Azeri government until he was finally illegally arrested and charged with drug possession after a policeman allegedly placed some heroin in his pocket while under custody.

The remaining four incarcerated journalists deserve to be released just as much as Mr. Zadikhov. These are their names and particular circumstances:

Eynulla Fatullayev was put in jail on April 20, 2007 because of his investigating reporting on the alleged official cover-up of the murder of another Azeri editor, Elmar Huseynov, in 2005. He first was charged with authoring an article published on several websites defaming the people of Azerbaijan. Mr. Fatullayev rejected any involvement with the article but was immediately put in jail. Later he was charged with very serious crimes, such as terrorism and incitement to ethnic hatred, which cost him a total sentence of more than eight years in prison.

As editor-in-chief of a pro-government publication, Ali Hasanov was charged with criminal defamation after unbylined articles about a prostitution ring were published in Ideal, his magazine. He was sentenced to six months in prison, starting on Nov. 14, 2008. His deputy editor, Nazim Guliyev, went into hiding after Mr. Hasanov’s incarceration.

Novruzali Mamedov, editor of the Talyshi Sado newspaper and a leader of the Talyshi ethnic minority in southern Azerbaijan, was initially arrested on Feb. 3, 2007 for resisting law enforcement and sentenced to 15 days in prison. While in detention, he was further charged with treason and kept incommunicado. His judicial proceedings were closed to the public because of alleged reasons of national security. Mamedov was later charged with encouraging ethnic differences and publishing his 1,000-circulation newspaper with Iranian funding, and sentenced to ten years in prison.

And finally, Genimet Zakhidov, just like his brother Sakit, has been the victim of allegedly concocted charges in retribution for his critical articles about public officials. He was arrested on Nov. 10, 2007 and charged with criminal assault after a couple faked such an attack on the streets of Baku. In the absence of any legal documentation that proved his guilt and with his witness kept from testifying at his trial, Mr. Zakhinov was sentenced to four years in prison.

Arresting journalists because of their professional activity is a serious attack not only on their fundamental human rights, including press freedom, but also on their audience, who thus are deprived of important information about issues of public interest. By keeping them in prison, the state also holds their audience hostage to an arbitrary decision that threatens fundamental democratic principles.

The harassment and illegal detention of members of the media represent grave violations of fundamental human rights postulates enshrined not only in the Azeri Constitution but also in international covenants, such as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), of which your country is signatory.

Article 19 of the UDHR states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression and opinion; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The release of Sakit Zakhinov and the reversal of the prison sentence of journalist Asif Marzili on the same day are very welcomed news for the efforts of Azerbaijan’s free and independent media as well as for the international press freedom community. Yet, Your Excellency, we still urge you to exercise your presidential power and influence to release Messrs. Fatullayev, Hasanov, Mamedov and Genimet Zakhidov from prison and thus take a decisive step toward the full democratization of your country.

Respectfully,

E. Markham Bench
Executive Director
World Press Freedom Committee

CC:  Viviane Reding, European Union Commissioner for Information Society and Media
H.E. Yashar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United States of America
The members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations:
Committee to Protect Journalists
Inter American Press Association
International Association of Broadcasting
International Federation of the Periodical Press
International Press Institute
North American Broadcasters Association
World Association of Newspapers
World Press Freedom Committee