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By Vugar Gojayev

At the beginning of 2009, the Azeri services of the BBC, Radio Liberty and Voice of America were banned from broadcasting on national frequencies in Azerbaijan. The National Television and Radio Council, a pro-government agency regulating domestic broadcasting, denied any political motives, saying the foreign radio stations were taken off air as the frequencies were government property and could not be used by foreign broadcasters. Whatever the official justification, the ban was a blatant attack on the last remnants of free speech, silencing critical voices in Azerbaijan.

Foreign broadcasters were the only media outlets offering a plurality of political views, dissenting voices and alternative information to the Azerbaijani public. The Azerbaijani media never airs any politically sensitive issues, or contradicts the government’s view for fear of official retribution, including the revocation of broadcast licenses and fabricated tax evasion charges.

‘Stop the Azerbaijani government!’, ‘Don’t silence foreign radios’ were some of the slogans that used to decorate my Twitter and Facebook pages and those of many other social media users in Azerbaijan, frustrated by the government’s decision to ban foreign broadcasters. Living in a country where the state controls public discourse, suppresses opposition and severely curtails freedom of expression, I was not surprised by the government’s action, but I was very depressed by it all the same.

As a radio listener, I have always depended on these three radio stations for regular and objective news. It was dismaying for me to see how easily the incumbent regime put a lid on these last remnants of pluralistic media. Freedom House called the ban on foreign radio broadcasts in Azerbaijan ‘a blow to the country’s already dismal press freedom record’. Given that the broadcast media is the main source of information in the country, many Azeris were well aware of the authorities’ intention to set a monopoly for state-controlled media and prevent any independent or opposition view from reaching the public at large. In March, a US state department report said: ‘Without these international broadcasters the public no longer had access to unbiased news on any widely available broadcast media.’

The timing of the ban was significant. It happened when Azerbaijan’s weak parliament was discussing a controversial public referendum on scrapping presidential term limits. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the ban on broadcasting was also largely to avoid criticism of the referendum, which granted approval to President Ilham Aliyev to stay in power indefinitely.

Although banned, foreign broadcasts can be accessed via satellite, cable and internet platforms. But according to Miklos Haraszti, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s former representative on media freedom, these means are unable to provide an adequate reception, as ‘the internet usage is low, the expansion of satellite radio is unrealistic and shortwave radio is scratchy’.

In the early days of the ban, Azadliq Radio (Radio Liberty’s Azeri language service) claimed it had lost some 95 per cent of its audience. For many, however, Azadliq Radio remains the essential source of information, with its news-rich website, live political debates, investigative reports and talk shows.

The fact that Azeris have been left without access to free and independent media has encouraged many to turn to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as an alternative source of information. But as the internet becomes an important challenger to the state’s media hegemony, the government is already talking about the need for setting new regulations to control the technology.

A crackdown has already begun. The authorities were quick to arrest two bloggers – Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade – in July last year on politically motivated charges, as both activists had been using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs to write about abuse of power, corruption and is management of oil revenues. Weeks prior to their arrest, the two had posted a video satirizing the ruling regime, which had spent a large amount of state money importing two donkeys from Germany. According to many government critics, the video, which was posted online, was a great source of anger for officials and was thought to be the main reason for their imprisonment.

Meanwhile the country continues to slide on its downward trajectory in international freedom indexes, with Reporters Sans Frontieres ranking Azerbaijan 146 out of 175 countries in 2009. Journalists continue to be arrested on trumped-up charges, including defamation, terrorism, incitement to ethnic hatred and hooliganism. While exercising their right to freedom of expression, journalists face assault, harassment and imprisonment. None of these politically motivated and vicious attacks has ever been investigated by the authorities and this has created a climate of impunity for violence against government critics.

Investigations into the murder of the country’s prominent investigative journalist, Elmar Huseynov, in March 2005 have got nowhere, with neither the hit man nor those behind the killing found. In addition, the independent newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev remains in jail because of his journalistic activities.

The large inflow of oil revenues into Azerbaijan’s economy has been accompanied by a consolidation of the power of the state and greater restriction of fundamental freedoms, in particular media freedom. Human rights campaigners say the oil wealth has also been spent to sweep political opposition aside and silence outspoken media by putting the regime’s critics behind bars. Western countries with oil and gas interests in Azerbaijan appear to be only too willing to tone down criticism or avoid it altogether, in return for continued access to the vast natural resources and safe transport
of oil.

The international community needs to recognize that it has an important role to play in challenging the Soviet-style media control in Azerbaijan. It should intervene to ensure that media freedom is respected in the country. Azerbaijani authorities should be reminded that freedom of expression is a fundamental principle of any democratic society, guaranteed by a number of treaties.

*Vugar Gojayev is a freelance journalist writing on the developments in South Caucasus. He holds MA in Human Rights from the University of Essex, United Kingdom. This article was first published by Index On Censorship.