Media

Media

OSCE media freedom representative welcomes release of three imprisoned journalists in Azerbaijan

21 April 2009 15:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, welcomed today the pardoning by Azerbaijan’s Parliament of two imprisoned journalists and the release of a third by a court, APA reports quoting OSCEâ€™s website. Haraszti expressed hope that the country will soon bring its handling of defamation cases into line with European standards, as suggested recently by President Ilham Aliyev.
In a letter sent yesterday to President Aliyev, Haraszti noted with satisfaction the president’s statement that described the new libel conviction as not in line with European standards and urged avoiding imprisonment of journalists in the future.

OSCE representative proposed that Azerbaijan undertake a renewed effort to decriminalize defamation. Haraszti also expressed his concern regarding two recently passed laws, on the mass media and on television and radio broadcasting. He asked President Aliyev to send the still unsigned Broadcasting Law back to Parliament for a review so it could be adapted to international standards and commitments.

"I hope that the recent positive trend of releasing journalists would soon affect also the fate of the remaining imprisoned journalists - Eynulla Fatullayev, Ganimat Zahidov and Mushfiq Huseynov," Haraszti said.

On 9 April, Sakit Zahidov (Mirza Sakit), correspondent of newspaper Azadliq was released, and the libel conviction of the Tezadlar weekly editor Asif Marzili was annulled. On 11 April, Ali Hasanov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Ideal was also released.