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monopolies in major trade and industrial sectors and his cronies continue to occupy senior state
positions. The whole political system revolves around him: his presidential administration is the source of
all power in the country, while the parliament is a rubber stamp and toothless institution and most
ministers are implementers of his will. Like his father, he has consistently removed anyone who poses a
threat to him. For instance, two highly influential and relatively outspoken ministers – the Minister of
Economic Development and Minister of Health – were put in jail suddenly in 2005 under coup attempt
charges, which were politically motivated acts to sweep away anyone posing a danger to Aliyev’s rule.
Media
Journalists who express critical opinions often become targets of persecution and violence by the
authorities, whose extensive use of defamation, drug possession, hooliganism and other politicallymotivated
charges muzzle voices of dissent in society. At least half of the journalists imprisoned in
Azerbaijan since 2006 were convicted on charges of criminal libel or defamation. There is a growing
environment of state hostility towards independent and opposition media. Freedom of expression has
become a serious source of concern under the reign of President Ilham Aliyev. Since then, there has been
a sharp increase in violent attacks, politically motivated arrests and harassment aimed at silencing
opposition and independent journalists. There is no single recorded case where vicious physical assaults
against journalists have ever been fairly inspected by the authorities.
The ruling regime effectively uses Soviet-style methods or defamation provisions to obstruct investigative
journalism, prevent public debate and stifle open criticism of the government. As the country has a long
history of deep corruption, investigative journalism that seeks to expose cases of corruption is always
hampered by the authorities. Therefore, the more the journalists dig into these corruption cases, the
greater the risk of facing smear campaigns, violence or ending up in the courts for publishing
‘defamatory’ articles.
Investigating government corruption at the highest level and the businesses of the ruling Aliyev family are
among the taboos, which many journalists refrain to research. The Radio Free Europe reporter and the
country’s well-known investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was the target of a blackmail attempt
after she received written threats and an intimate video of her was published on the internet in mid-
March 2012. Ms Ismayilova was recently working on a story linking members of the President's family to
a huge construction project, and she suspects that it was this story that the blackmailers were hoping to
block. These types of smear campaigns to intimidate outspoken journalists have also been used against
the chief editor and director of the newspaper ‘Azadlig Ganimat’, Zahid and Azer Akhmedov, while
journalist Agil Khalil was also implicated as having had a homosexual partner in an attempt to harass him.
The government has deliberately promoted a sense of impunity for violence against journalists so as to
ingrain self-censorship in the opposition media. Though seven years have passed since the murder of
country’s well-known investigative journalist Elmar Huseynov of Monitor journal, the perpetuators have
yet to be apprehended. The killing of another well-known journalist, Rafig Tagi, in November 2012 shows
that the situation of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan has deteriorated to a terrible and dangerous
extent. Thus far, nobody has been charged with Tagi's murder. Human Rights Watch has documented the
cases of nine journalists, who fled Azerbaijan in recent years, fearing repercussions for their journalism
work.
Political prisoners
Releasing political prisoners was one of the key accession commitments of Azerbaijan before the Council
of Europe in 2001. With almost 11 years passed, the country still keeps around 70 political prisoners.
Though President Aliyev pardoned several of the political prisoners in his terms in the office, the
government continues to arrest dozens of opposition supporters over the years on politically motivated
and bogus charges. The Council of Europe’s Special Rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan has
not been granted an entry visa since March 2009 by the Azeri authorities to visit the country and make
his report, as the government refuses to acknowledge the existence of political prisoners and does not
want to cooperate with the Rapporteur.
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