Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-320"
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"en.20051026.21.3-320"2
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"Madam President, freedom of speech is one of the key factors in the democracy-building process. A good indication of the extent to which this freedom has been achieved is the level of freedom enjoyed by the media.
Azerbaijan became a member of the Council of Europe four years ago. At the time, it undertook to guarantee freedom of speech, the independence of the media and the work of journalists. We are well aware of such matters, but there is an ongoing need to inform and remind the people of Azerbaijan about the importance of the role played by the media. We must also remind them about the importance of free and equal access to the media for all citizens and political forces, particularly during electoral campaigns. This includes the campaign conducted in the run-up to the forthcoming November elections.
The fact of the matter is that one of the country’s best-known journalists, Elmar Huseynov, has been murdered. No one took any action to prevent this murder, even though his wife had reported that he was being followed by unknown individuals and many of his friends claimed that he had expected to be murdered. After the event, President Aliyev announced that it was a serious provocation against the state, and accused the perpetrators of damaging Azerbaijan’s good reputation. The government even asked other countries for help, but the investigation has yielded no results to date. Instead, it has resulted in much speculation. The most widely-read newspapers are still controlled by the government, and the opposition press is only read by a minority. The newspaper
was discontinued after Huseynov’s death, and although his successor has launched a new publication
he almost immediately came up against enormous problems publishing it. At present, the publication has a circulation of only 3 000.
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper
who is also a member of parliament and head of the Musavat party, is one of the opposition leaders who were imprisoned in October 2003. Although he has now been pardoned by the President, his editorial team had to stop work due to the enormous pressure exerted by the ruling parties and the excessive fines imposed by the courts. This is the situation in which the opposition press finds itself in Azerbaijan today, both in general and in the run-up to elections. Even though state television was privatised several months ago, the main stations still operate in virtually the same way, by which I mean that they exclude the opposition. Even though new television stations that are in the pipeline are intended to target a wider cross-section of society, there is virtually no chance of them doing so.
In conclusion, there is a chance that free media may one day operate in Azerbaijan. It is too late, however, to establish a genuinely diverse media landscape before the November elections."@en1
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"Monitor"1
"Real Azerbaijan"1
"Yeni Musavat"1
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