[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
Reacting to the news that another independent Azerbaijani journalist, Teymur Karimov, was arrested on Monday in Baku and now faces criminal charges, Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International\u2019s South Caucasus Researcher, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe arrest of Teymur Karimov follows a disturbing pattern of spurious charges being brought against journalists and other critical voices in Azerbaijan. What we are witnessing is an escalating crackdown on independent media, which\u00a0began\u00a0with the arrest of the leadership of the independent\u00a0Abzas Media\u00a0and\u00a0Kanal 13\u00a0in late November.<\/p>\n
The arrest of Teymur Karimov follows a disturbing pattern of spurious charges being brought against journalists and other critical voices in Azerbaijan<\/p>\n
Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International\u2019s South Caucasus Researcher<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s unfolding is worryingly reminiscent of the crackdowns on independent media, media freedom and civil society seen in 2012 and 2015, which decimated civil society in Azerbaijan, saw the closure of critical outlets and NGOs, and the persecution and arbitrary arrests of dozens of human rights defenders and activists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Background<\/strong><\/p>\n On 12 December 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan confirmed the arrest of Teymur Karimov, the head of the independent YouTube news channel\u00a0Kanal-11, who had gone missing a day earlier. According to officials, a criminal case was opened against him under Article 182 of the Criminal Code (\u201cextortion\u201d).<\/p>\n Since November, authorities have arrested at least six journalists, placing them in pretrial detention on what appear to be fabricated charges. Those arrested include the director of\u00a0Abzas Media, Ulvi Hasanli; chief editor Sevinj Vagifgyzy; journalist Nargiz Absalamova; contributor Mahammad Kekalov; the founder of\u00a0Kanal 13, Aziz Orujov; and its host, Rufat Muradli. A handful of other journalists were called in for questioning and reported being harassed and threatened against continuing their journalistic activities and critical reporting.-0-<\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Reacting to the news that another independent Azerbaijani journalist, Teymur Karimov, was arrested on Monday in Baku and now faces criminal charges, Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International\u2019s South Caucasus Researcher, said: \u201cThe arrest of Teymur Karimov follows a disturbing pattern of spurious charges being brought against journalists and other critical voices in Azerbaijan. What we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-feed"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27002,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26999\/revisions\/27002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}