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press releases & Protests
June 6, 2008
His Excellency Ilham Aliyev
President
Republic of Azerbaijan
19 Istiglaliyat St.
370066 Baku
Azerbaijan
Your Excellency:
The World Press Freedom Committee (www.wpfc.org) —an organization representing 45 press freedom groups from throughout the world— urgently calls your attention to the inhumane treatment Azadlyg reporter Agil Khalil is being subject to allegedly by officials of the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Republic.
In at least five occasions in the past months, Mr. Khalil has been the target of physical attacks, including a stabbing that nearly missed his heart and an attempt to push him onto train tracks. In another attack, on Feb. 21, alleged members of law enforcement agencies, beat him, took his press credentials, broke his finger and tried to strangle him with his own camera, as Mr. Khalil reported to the police.
But even though there is plenty of evidence of this attack, including a video clip available here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=422fu6Xn6P0), the Office of the Prosecutor General sided with the assailants and refused to bring charges against them alleging that a medical examination conducted three weeks after the incident “did not reveal any objective signs of physical injuries” on Mr. Khalil.
In fact, ignoring numerous international pleas for his safety, the Office of the Prosecutor General has refused to conduct any serious investigations on the repeated attacks on Mr. Khalil, leaving him at the mercy of his tormentors and in an impossible situation for him to conduct his journalistic work —the obvious intention of the constant harassment. Moreover, he has been banned from leaving the country, perhaps his only chance to escape from this harassment.
Your Excellency, we consider these physical attacks and this intimidation, and even serious attempts on Mr. Khalil’s life, as barbaric forms of silencing an active member of Azerbaijan’s independent media that deserve an immediate intervention by the country’s highest authorities, whose first and foremost duty is to protect law-abiding citizens from the bullies of society.
As we have expressed in previous letters to Your Excellency, an attack on the rights or physical integrity of a journalist constitutes an especially reprehensible crime because it not only attempts to silence him or her, but also the readers, audience or viewers who depend on that journalist to receive important information of public interest.
The attacks on Mr. Khalil, ostensibly by alleged members of the very government that is charged with his protection, represent blatant violations of both his constitutional and human rights, as recognized by your country’s Constitution, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the jurisprudence of every single international court and human rights convention on the planet.
Therefore, Your Excellency, we urge you to use the full extent of your executive powers to influence the appropriate authorities to conduct a fair and thorough investigation into these attacks so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice and Mr. Khalil can return to his journalistic work.
Respectfully,
E. Markham Bench
Executive Director
World Press Freedom Committee
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