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Front News Georgia
Kyiv: Journalists of Azerbaijan, who are still trying to be independent of the authorities, believe that the situation with freedom of the media in their country will worsen even more, because the authorities do not want to talk. The correspondent of Front News International spoke with independent Azerbaijani journalist Seymur Kazimov about the current situation in the journalistic community and the prospects for the development of the situation.
Front News: I know that you have a complicated situation in the country with the media. I have already talked about this with journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Against her the authorities have been conducting criminal cases for several years. What is the current situation with the media?
Seymur Kazimov: The situation in media in Azerbaijan since 2005 has been drastically deteriorating. Now, despite the fact that Mehman Aliyev (the director of the last independent news agency Turan-FNI) was already released, but the court continued and criminal cases have not been closed yet. However, we demand that we simply finish this farce, because this agency has nothing to do with violations. Turan is the only independent news agency, it’s the only and the last independent agency. It was impossible to work, because they imposed arrests on bank accounts and now the agencies do not work. Journalists and bloggers are in prison.
FNI: How many detainees are there now?
SK: About 14-17 people. Then there are people who wrote something on Facebook and they were arrested too, but they are not journalists, the man simply expressed his opinion, criticized someone and he was imprisoned. There are many prisoners politically imprisoned. There is no independent media, independent television, newspapers and advertising environment too, there are no subscriptions to newspapers at all. What is happening now does not does not correspond to 21st century.
Yes, we have the Internet, we have Facebook, Twitter, but in Azerbaijan the Internet does not play a major role in providing information to the Azerbaijani society. It has more faith in television. All TV channels are controlled by the government, despite the fact that some call themselves private television companies, even public television is also under control, so they give only one-sided information that we are all right, the West is our enemies, they envy our development and so on.
And journalistic education too – in private universities there are no already journalism faculties, they were eliminated. Therefore, unfortunately, nothing is so good.
Well of the good, if it can be called so, was that some journalists received apartments from the president. This is the second time. This year, on July 22, on the National Press Day, the president simply presented 255 apartment to journalists. They believe that this is good, but it’s the other way around, if a journalist receives a gift from the president, then he should be loyal. And the first time it was in 2013, then 156 journalists received apartments. And now the third house is under construction. It is bribing journalists in a cultural form.
FNI: Those journalists who are negative about this state of affairs, are you trying to contact international structures for help?
SK: International structures, they do nothing but dialogue. We can also talk, but international structures can not solve the problem. The government of the country should decide this. The government does not go to any compromise, they listen, make their conclusions, but act as they need. The Azerbaijani government is unfortunately closed to everything – to reforms, to councils.
And several international organizations in Azerbaijan do not work anymore, such as IREX, the OSCE does not work anymore. The Union of Europe and the European Union are already working in other areas – energy security and the economy. Media and human rights are already in the background.
That is, who can solve the problem – the government itself, and the government is closed to everything. We need political will, we need to want to solve it, but, unfortunately, we do not see it. This situation shows that future will be worse.
FNI: Are you positioning yourself as an independent journalist, how do you work?
SK: Yes, we can write, but to say that we are not afraid of this is also not true. After all, we are people. Some are not afraid for themselves, but for their families. In this situation, we are working. We write, and then we start to think what will happen to us.
FNI: How do you communicate with each other with journalists who have taken a pro-government stance?
SK: It’s normal. We meet, talk. Yes, there are some small disputes in social networks. But we are not hostile. Just such a situation – someone takes it, but someone does not. For example, I do not think it’s right to accept gifts from the government, a house or a car, and someone thinks it should be so. We have very different views, we do not say that we are close friends, but we are not enemies, we communicate, we congratulate each other on our birthday, we have normal human relations. Unfortunately, our colleagues think differently, they say that there is freedom of speech in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani media are developing and we have no problems, and then we have a dispute that you see this problem, but the person has already received his gifts and talks about good things.
Sometimes there are problems when they say why you criticize our country. But this is the goal of journalism – we do not criticize, but we tell the truth, we say the facts, if everything is bad – it means everything is bad, we have our arguments. If something is good, then we also say it. But at the moment we do not see anything good. Mehman Aliyev was released the other day, but the criminal code is not closed yet. At any moment, something can happen. In general, we say, but everyone remains at their opinion, but the reality is that the situation is deteriorating.
FNI: How much worse will the situation be if there are no independent media outlets already?
SK: There may be other arrests. Now many journalists have a ban on traveling abroad. These acts can continue. There is not a single good example to say, it was all bad, but it became good.
FNI: And the last question about civil society, do they see that there is such a problem with media freedom?
SK: Civil society has its own problem. Beginning in 2014, several non-governmental organizations were closed, several were arrested, and emigrated from the country. International non-governmental organizations closed. And the problems of the media and civil society – they are the same.
Yes, there are pro-government organizations, they also believe that everything is fine, because they receive grants from the government. There are no independent, you know.
FNI: A lot of people dissatisfied with this situation, is it possible that these people will rally to protest? Will it work?
SK: No. There is no such spirit. We can only write. If even people protest, then who will leave the journalists, we do not want protests, we do not want rallies. We want normal reforms, we want to work normally, as journalists work in Europe, in America. We want, that nobody arrested us simply because of the status in Facebook.
Mary Streltsova
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