Pressure upon employees of Azerbaijan newspaper ?Milliyet?

On April 23 a group of unknown persons in mufti arrived on two cars to the editorial office of the opposition newspaper ?Milliyet? and took away two employees of this edition: Tale Abas and Sarkyard Sarkhanov. The incident occurred at 16:00. As the newspaper employees reported, their colleagues had been taken away in an unknown direction. The strangers arrived to the editorial office did not introduce themselves. So it could only be surmised they were representatives of some law-enforcement structures. The promoter of the newspaper Zalimkhan Mamedli said that a collage had been published in the Saturday number. The next day all Saturday numbers of the newspaper had been withdrawn from the stands, and officials from the Office of Public Prosecutor had demanded explanations from the editors, said Mamedli. According to his data, the members of the newspaper were taken by the officers from the police and the Office of Public Prosecutor. It turned out to be impossible to get any comments on this fact in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Office of Public Prosecutor. The whereabouts of the journalists and their fate remained unknown.

In his part, the Chairman of the Press Council Aflatun Amashev gave an extremely negative appraisal of the fact happened. ?Nobody has rights to withdraw printed editions from sale without a court decision and, even more so, take journalists away. Therefore the actions of the law-enforcement departments are illegal?, Amashev noted. According to the information that was received the day before yesterday, the two employees of the opposition newspaper ?Milliyet? Takhir Abbasly and Sarkyard Sarkhanov detained by the officers of the law-enforcement organs were released. As Abbasly said, they were conveyed to the First Deputy of the General Public Prosecutor of Azerbaijan Ramiz Rzaev, where they got the official notification that it was inadmissible to publish materials insulting honour and dignity of the president of the country?.