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AZERBAIJAN
I. OSCE
official notes need for media council.
Problems relating to the development of the independent
press in Azerbaijan were discussed at a news conference
yesterday in the Press Club, with the participation of
Freimut Duve and Stanley (?Shrager), OSCE officials
monitoring media freedom.
Addressing
journalists, Duve pointed out that during a meeting with
the Azerbaijani president, issues relating to media
legislation, the role of the press in society as well as
issues connected with state television were discussed.
[President]
Heydar Aliyev had told him that journalism was
independent in Azerbaijan today and all measures required
for fruitful activities were being taken. As for
trials, they are under way because some media
representatives publish incorrect information in their
publications. “I would like to believe that
this is true,” Freimut Duve told the news
conference.
Duve noted the
need to create a media council in Azerbaijan to tackle
controversial issues in this sphere. “We
advised Heydar Aliyev to set up such a body and asked him
to annul all the sentences passed by courts against the
press.”
Duve also
noted that he had some negative facts about the state of
the press in Azerbaijan and stressed that he had appealed
to the Azerbaijani leadership to investigate these
facts. He said that in contrast to other Caucasian
republics, the press was more independent in Azerbaijan
where only one journalist was known to have been
arrested. “This fact is pleasing but even that
arrested journalist is one too many,” said
Duve. He told journalists that he had met in jail a
political science student, Fuad Gahramanly, who is the
only arrested media representative. Duve repeatedly
stressed that Fuad Gahramanly had been arrested for an
unpublished article [“The rally tactics of the
opposition” ]. “That is like arresting
someone for his thoughts,” says Duve. In his
words, he discussed this question during his meeting with
Heydar Aliyev, demanding that Gahramanly be freed and
that the prosecutions and trials of the opposition and
independent press be stopped.
In Duve’s
words, 90 per cent of Azerbaijani television programmes
are working for the president, which is inadmissible in a
country which has taken a path towards democracy.
He pointed out the need to reform Azerbaijani TV, for
example, to remove state control and to make it a public
channel. If these reforms are not implemented, we
cannot talk about Azerbaijan as a state taking genuine
steps towards democracy.
Sharg news agency,
Baku, February 25, 1999
II. OSCE
envoy says reform of state TV necessary.
“I have received quite a bit of negative information
on the situation of the press in Azerbaijan and in this
connection I have asked official Baku for an
explanation,” the representative of the OSCE on the
issues of the press, Freimut Duve, told a press
conference [on 24th February].
“Today I
met the jailed journalist, Fuad Gahramanly, and I am
shocked that he was sentenced for an unpublished article
[“Rally tactics of the opposition” ], actually,
for his thoughts,” Duve said.
The question
of the need to release Gahramanly and to end the legal
proceedings against independent and opposition newspapers
was raised during the meeting with [Azerbaijani
President] Heydar Aliyev, the OSCE representative said.
The reform of
state television is necessary and it must be removed from
state control and become public like the BBC, Duve
thinks. Moreover, it is necessary to simplify the
procedure for registering the mass media and for refusal
to issue a licence. Unless these reforms are
implemented then one cannot speak about democratic
elections in Azerbaijan, Duve said.
Turan news agency,
Baku, February 24, 1999
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