Azerbaijan: Two bloggers freed; Fatullayev remains imprisoned

English PEN is pleased and relieved that the Azeri court of appeal has at last freed the bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade. However, we continue to protest the inhumane treatment of Azeri journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, who remains in prison despite a European Court of Human Rights’ ruling that he should be freed. We are calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Eynulla Fatullayev, in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Azerbaijan is a state party.

Emin Milli, co-founder of the online Alumni Network organisation and editor of the Internet television site, ANOT, was released on 19 November 2010. Adnan Hajizade, co-founder of the youth movement OL (To Be), was released on 18 November 2010. Together, the two men are commonly known as the ‘Donkey Bloggers’ due to a video they released that satirised the expensive importation of donkeys into Azerbaijan. To watch the video on YouTube (in Azeri language with English subtitles) click here.

In 2009 Milli and Hajizade were arrested by police in Baku, following a scuffle which the two men believed was deliberately set up to entrap them. They received a two-year and a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence respectively, on charges of ‘hooliganism’ and ‘inflicting minor bodily harm.’ Human rights groups and press freedom organisations believed that these were fabricated charges, and that the real reason for the writers’ punishment was their Internet-published criticism of government corruption.

For more information about Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, please click here.

Eynulla Fatullayev, the former editor of the now-defunct Russian language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and the Azeri language weekly Gündelike Azerbaijan, was sentenced on 30 October 2007 to eight and a half years in prison on charges of defamation, terrorism, incitement of ethnic hatred and tax evasion. On 6 July 2010, Fatullayev was sentenced to a further two and a half years in prison on drug possession charges – brought while he was in prison. International human rights observers maintain that the charges were fabricated. PEN and other human rights monitors consider Fatullayev to be imprisoned because of his history of human rights reporting. At an appeal hearing in Baku on 5 November 2010, Fatullayev was made to sit in a cage and was denied appropriate access to his lawyer.

On 22 April 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Fatullayev’s 2007 convictions were contrary to his right to freedom of expression, as stated under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court said that Fatullayev should be released immediately and also that he should be awarded US$33,400 compensation. As a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, Azerbaijan is supposed to comply with the ruling. The country’s Supreme Court last week lifted some charges against Fatullayev, including defamation and instigating terrorism. But he remains in prison on the drug possession charges. On 22 November the appeals court upheld the drug possession conviction.

For more information on Eynulla Fatullayev, please click here.

Independent journalists and writers are regularly harassed by Azeri authorities and live under threat of prosecution, imprisonment and violence. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, Azerbaijan has the fifth highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world.

Although the Azeri authorities make serious efforts to suppress independent journalism, they rarely prosecute and convict journalists and writers for offences directly related to what they have published. Instead, writers are arrested and prosecuted on charges of incitement of hatred, tax evasion, hooliganism, or on spurious drug possession charges. The trials of journalists facing such charges do not meet international fair trial standards, and they effectively silence critical reporting of the government.

Independent journalists also complain that violence against them – or the threat of violence – is commonplace, and that such attacks usually go unpunished.

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

Please send appeals:

- Welcoming the release of the two writers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade.
- Urging the Azeri authorities to comply with the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling that they release Eynulla Fatullayev immediately and to grant him compensation for unfair trial.     
- Calling for an end to his humiliating treatment.
- Calling for an end to the imprisonment and harassment of journalists in Azerbaijan in the practice of their right to freedom of expression.

Send to:
President
Ilham Aliyev
Office of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic
19 Istiqlaliyyat Street
Baku AZ1066
Azerbaijan
Fax: 994 12 492 0625

Minister of Internal Affairs
Lt.-Gen. Ramil Usubov
Ministry of Internal Affairs
Husu Hajiyev Street 7, 370005 Baku
Azerbaijan
Fax:  994 12 492 45 90

Please also send copies of your appeals to the Embassy of Azerbaijan here in the UK:

His Excellency Fakhraddin Gurbanov
Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan
4, Kensington Court
London
W8 5DL