The Voice of Mirza Xazar

U.S. State Department Report On Trafficking in Persons Report Released by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons June 5, 2006 AZERBAIJAN Azerbaijan is primarily a source and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Most Azerbaijani victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation to Turkey and the Persian Gulf. Other destinations include Russia, Germany, and Greece. Reports of internal trafficking also continued, as did reports of men trafficked to Turkey and Russia for forced labor. The Government of Azerbaijan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government undertook important steps to prevent and combat trafficking during the reporting period. In 2005, the government passed anti-trafficking legislation, appointed a new national anti-trafficking coordinator, fully vetted the staff of an anti-trafficking police unit, nearly completed renovations of a trafficking shelter, and created two new trafficking hotlines. The government should take immediate and tangible steps to improve victim rehabilitation by opening, adequately staffing, and fully funding its shelter for trafficking victims. It should also implement a nation-wide victim referral mechanism so that law enforcement personnel improve identification and protection of trafficking victims. Prosecution In 2005, the Government of Azerbaijan adopted its Law on the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons and adopted corresponding amendments to the criminal code. The law covers trafficking for both forced labor and sexual exploitation and carries a maximum penalty of 10 to 12 years. Due to the late passage of the criminal code amendments, however, the government continued to use older trafficking-related laws to prosecute traffickers in 2005. During the reporting period, the government opened 160 trafficking investigations and prosecuted 153 cases, resulting in 93 convictions. By the end of the reporting period, 37 traffickers were in prison. The government gave fines to 26 convicted traffickers and gave suspended sentences to 10 convicted traffickers in 2005. During the reporting period, the government completed a thorough vetting process, including conducting exams and background investigations, for its anti-trafficking police unit to ensure the unit meets international standards. The Ministry of Interior worked with customs and border officials to monitor and identify potential trafficking victims at airports, seaports, and land crossings and in January 2006 announced the disruption of a transnational trafficking ring. The Azerbaijani Government cooperated with U.S. counterparts to provide critical information for the prosecution of a U.S. trafficking case involving Azerbaijani victims in 2005. Reports of border guards and law enforcement officials receiving bribes to facilitate trafficking continued. The government established an anti-corruption commission last year to address pervasive corruption. Protection The Government of Azerbaijan continued to provide an inadequate level of assistance and support to victims in 2005. During the reporting period, the government failed to develop or implement a formal screening and referral mechanism to identify and assist victims. Although officials informally referred victims to state healthcare facilities, these facilities lack the capacity to provide the required specialized treatment or information for victims of trafficking. Some police referred victims to NGOs; however, a lack of adequate shelters in Azerbaijan forced NGO workers to use their own homes to shelter victims. The government made significant progress constructing and renovating a new trafficking shelter during the reporting period; the shelter is expected to open in spring 2006. Prevention The Government of Azerbaijan established two nation-wide trafficking hotlines in 2005. During the reporting period, the government conducted joint seminars with NGOs on trafficking throughout Azerbaijan, demonstrating increased interaction with civil society on trafficking. The State Committee on Women, Children and Families incorporated trafficking prevention into its education and trainings that targeted women from all sectors of society. The anti-trafficking coordinator led the government's inter-agency task force in coordinating communication among agencies. (source: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2006/65988.htm)

A series of arrests and prison sentences for charges that include terrorism have journalists in Azerbaijan wondering if there is any sort of future for a free press.

Commentary by Karl Rahder for ISN Security Watch (25/05/07)

Increasingly bad news for freedom of expression has recently come out of Azerbaijan, the US' oil-rich ally in the Caspian Sea region, where five journalists have been sentenced to harsh prison sentences in the last few weeks in what critics say is a government campaign to stifle free speech.

Rafiq Tagi, a journalist with the independent newspaper Senet was sentenced on 3 May in Baku, the capital, to a four-year term for “inciting religious hatred,” while his editor Samir Sadagatoglu received a three-year sentence.

The prison terms and prosecution came as a result of a commentary written last November by Tagi entitled “Europe and Us,” which according to press reports compared Muslim societies such as Azerbaijan with historically Christian Europe and concluded that Islam had, on the whole, hindered social and political development.

While this sort of reflective social commentary might be the norm in the West, the outcry from some quarters in secular, Shi’ite Azerbaijan was shrill, with ultra-conservative Muslims in the village of Nadaran calling for the two men’s deaths and the public prosecutor bringing criminal charges against them.

In neighboring Iran, Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani has issued a fatwa calling for the execution of Tagi and his editor, saying on his

website: http://www.lankarani.org/eng/mes/016.html

that “it is necessary for every individual who has an access to him to kill him. The person in charge of the […] newspaper, who published such thoughts and beliefs consciously and knowingly, should be dealt with in the same manner.” Another cleric who lives in the city of Tabriz has reportedly offered his house as a reward for anyone who kills the two men.
The sentence was handed down despite protests from Azerbaijan’s embattled journalistic community, a number of non-governmental organizations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

What emerges from the trials, convictions and physical attacks over the years is an apparent pattern of coordinated assaults against freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. On 27 April, independent journalist Eynulla Fatullayev was convicted of “criminal libel” and “insult” and sentenced to 30 months in prison for allegations he purportedly made having to do with events surrounding the massacre of civilians in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly during the 1992-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Fatullayev’s original article evidently attached some blame for the tragedy to the failure of Azerbaijani military forces to protect the town. But in the furor that followed the article, Fatullayev was charged with libeling the residents of Khojaly.

Fatullayev, perhaps Azerbaijan’s best-known opposition journalist, denies having made libelous comments, but his conviction - and the physical attack on the same day against his colleague Uzeir Jafarov - reminds critics of the government of the price they may be forced to pay when they stray too far from what is acceptable, to both the government and the conservative Shi’ite establishment.

Journalism in Azerbaijan was a high-risk endeavor even before the 2005 murder of Elmar Huseynov, editor of the independent Monitor newspaper, and a friend of Fatullayev’s. It clearly remains a high-risk endeavor.

In October last year, well-known poet and opposition journalist Sakit Zahidov was convicted on charges of illegal possession and use of drugs. The charges were widely believed to be politically oriented, with the arrest coming only three days after Ali Akhmedov, the executive secretary of Azerbaijan's ruling New Azerbaijan Party, called for Zahidov’s arrest for his alleged “slanders” against government officials.

Zahidov’s brother Ganimat happens to be the chief editor of the opposition newspaper Azadlig, which has been a thorn in the side of the government for years and was ejected from its office space in 2006 along with the Turan News Agency and the Popular Front Party.

Last week, Rovshan Karbili - the editor of opposition newspaper Mukhalifat - and reporter Yashar Agazade were sentenced to two and a half years in prison (identical to Fatulayev’s sentence) for libel in connection with an article that accused Jalal Aliyev, an uncle of President Ilham Aliyev, of corruption.

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti expressed “shock” over the sentence in a statement to the press.

"Azerbaijan's relentless persecution of journalists annihilates the security of journalism, a major OSCE commitment," said Haraszti.

The conviction and sentence came less than three weeks after a meeting between Haraszti and President Aliyev, during which the OSCE representative asked the president to halt the persecution of journalists, reminding Aliyev that "Azerbaijan today is the country in the OSCE region with the highest number of journalists in prison […]"

The US embassy in Baku issued a statement after the most recent convictions, saying that the imprisonment of seven journalists in toto in Azerbaijan "is part of a trend of pressure - including violence, threats and libel cases - that runs counter to Azerbaijan's stated commitment to media freedom. Journalists in democratic countries are not imprisoned for exercising freedom of expression. We urge the Azerbaijani government to remove libel from the criminal code and to take steps to create the necessary conditions for media freedom."
In 2005, Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that monitors democratic development, downgraded Azerbaijan from "partly free" to "not free."

Finally, on 21 May, authorities closed down the offices of Fatullayev’s newspaper Real Azerbaijan as well as another opposition paper, the Azerbaijan Daily, two of the most popular newspapers in the country. While the government says the closure was due to maintenance and fire safety issues, no other tenants in the building were evicted. And as of 23 May, Fatullayev faces additional charges of "making a terrorist threat," a development that could extend his prison term for many years.

The independent media are being all but shut down in Azerbaijan. The terrorism charges against Fatullayev and the stiff sentences handed out for a harmless editorial and criticism of a member of the president’s family send a message to the press that the confines for freedom of expression in Azerbaijan are becoming more circumscribed.

It is hard to imagine that the remaining opposition newspapers such as Azadlig will tone down their editorial coverage, although independent television network ANS is perceived by many to have done just that since it was allowed back on the air last year after a brief closure. The atmosphere in the country has certainly chilled in over the course of the past couple of weeks, and the government now will have to decide if it has communicated the new rules with sufficient clarity or whether more arrests are in the offing.

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Karl Rahder has taught US foreign policy and international history at colleges and universities in the US and Azerbaijan. In 2004, he was a Visiting Faculty Fellow in Azerbaijan with the Civic Education Project, an academic program funded by the Soros Foundations and the US Department of State. He is currently based in Chicago.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

URL: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=17659

VIENNA, 22 May 2007 -- The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, expressed concern today over the eviction of the country's two main independent newspapers from their premises, and new procedures against their imprisoned editor, Eynulla Fatullayev. On 20 May, the Ministry for Emergency Situations forcibly evacuated the staff of Realniy Azerbaijan and Gundalik Azarbaycan from their offices. The newspapers have not been printed since the eviction and it is unclear when their publication will resume. "The eviction paralyses Azerbaijan's largest and most popular newspapers, in a clear attempt to fully silence them. This is part of an ongoing campaign to do away with independent journalism," said Haraszti. He noted the evacuating authorities cited alleged danger from "structural deficiencies" in the 13-storey building, but had evicted no other tenants. "I have also received worrying news that since the eviction the
newspapers' servers and archives are being searched by national security personnel. All this represents an openly oppressive stance, going beyond the previously seen discriminatory treatment of independent media," Haraszti added. Reportedly, the search warrants were based on a new criminal case against the papers' founder and editor, Eynulla Fatullayev, already convicted last month for 'defamation of a village and of the army'. "I call on the authorities to stop persecuting the remaining free press in Azerbaijan and ensure that Realniy Azerbaijan and Gundalik Azarbaycan can resume their work," said Haraszti. Over the last months, the OSCE Representative has several times expressed his concern over the deteriorating state of freedom of the media in Azerbaijan, including during a visit to Baku where he met President Ilham Aliyev. Seven Azerbaijani journalists are presently in jail, most of them after criminal procedures for libel.

OSCE Press release

-- HREA - http://www.hrea.org Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international non-governmental organisation that supports human rights learning; the training of activists and professionals; the development of educational materials and programming; and community-building through on-line technologies.