PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release - 3rd May 2007

Azerbaijan: Journalist Imprisoned for Defamation

ARTICLE 19 issued an open letter to the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, expressing concern at the sentencing of the editor of the Gundelike Azerbaijan Eynulla Fatullayev.

ARTICLE 19’s expressed its grave concern at the continued arrests and violent attacks on media representatives in Azerbaijan. The latest case involves the arrest of Eynulla Fatullayev, founder and senior editor of Realny Azerbaijan and Gundelike Azerbaijan, and the violent attack on the deputy editor of Gundelike Azerbaijan, Uzeir Jafarov.

Mr. Fatullayev was recently prosecuted due to an article written in 2005 in Realny Azerbaijan where he criticised the Azerbaijani authorities and armed forces for failing to protect residents of the town of Khojaly during the siege of the town by Armenian forces in February 1992, at the time of the Karabakh conflict. He was charged with defamation under article 147 of the criminal code and on 20 April 2007 was found guilty of offending refugees from Khojaly. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and was taken into custody directly from the courtroom.

It is especially worrying that on the same day as Mr. Fatullayev was sentenced, his deputy Uzeir Jafarov was brutally attacked and taken to hospital with serious injuries. The attack came hours after Jafarov testified in a Baku court in favour of Eynulla Fatullayev.

Mr. Fatullayev becomes the fifth journalist currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan, giving the country one of the worst records in the region for the treatment of journalists.

ARTICLE 19 calls for the immediate release of Mr. Eynulla Fatullayev and urges the president to take all necessary steps towards the decriminalization of defamation.
 

NOTES TO EDITORS

• For more information: please contact Anoush Begoyan, tel:+44 20 7278 9292, anoushb@article19.org 
• To view a copy of the letter go to: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/letters/azerbaijan-defamation.pdf 
 

ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech.

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