Rights defenders blame Azerbaijani special services for persecuting journalists

The Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have condemned Azerbaijani authorities for politically motivated arrests of journalists Ikram Ragimov and Polad Aslanov.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Ikram Ragimov, the editor-in-chief of the website "Realliq.info" is under arrest since October 27, 2018. On June 12, the court sentenced him to 5.5 years of freedom deprivation. Polad Aslanov, the editor-in-chief of two Azerbaijani Internet editions, "Xeberman.com" and "Press-az.com", was detained on June 12, 2019, on suspicion of espionage. On June 14, a Baku court ruled to arrest Polad Aslanov for four months.

The Azerbaijani IRFS has expressed its serious concern about the fact that the two latest journalists' arrests have to do with the criminal prosecution of them by special services, says the IRFS' statement released on June 21.

In order to intimidate the journalistic community, Azerbaijani special services are demonstrating, using Ikram Ragimov and Polad Aslanov as an example, to all media professionals that they can arrest any of them and accuse them of various crimes – from petty extortions to treason, the IRFS has noted.

The IRFS demands from Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release all the arrested and convicted journalists, including Afghan Mukhtarly, Seimur Khazi, Elchin Ismailly, Ziya Asadli, Araz Guliev, Ikram Ragimov and Polad Aslanov.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also urged the Azerbaijani authorities to release journalists Ragimov and Aslanov and to drop all charges against them.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 22, 2019 at 06:30 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.