Clampdown by authorities on human rights groups in Azerbaijan continues
Azerbaijan: Police search NGO offices
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CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia
Turkey: Presidential election shines spotlight on free speech challenges
Concerns about media and internet freedom as Erdogan looks set to make the switch from prime minister to president
Call for the immediate and unconditional release of Leyla Yunus, Arif Yunus and Rasul Jafarov
60 NGOs from 13 Human Rights Houses call upon the Azerbaijani authorities, in their joint letter to President Ilham Aliyev, to immediately and unconditionally release Leyla Yunus, Arif Yunus and Rasul Jafarov, and lift all charges held against them.
Azerbaijan’s government detains human rights defenders
Azerbaijani human rights activist Rasul Jafarov has been charged with tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and power abuse and sentenced to three months of pre-trial detention. Jafarov’s detention follows the arrest last week of Leyla and Arif Yunus and the disappearance of the print edition of Azadliq.
Azadliq editor not hopeful for future of Azerbaijan’s last independent daily
Index Award winning Azadliq newspaper was forced into cancelling its print run last week with little hope of restoring its publication.
Assaults against journalists rise in Turkey
Since the beginning of this year, cases of assault against journalists, legal threats and lay offs worsened Turkey’s already precarious state of press freedom. Catherine Stupp reports
Azerbaijan: Azadliq forced to suspend publication
One of the few remaining independent media outlets in Azerbaijan, the 2014 Index on Censorship Guardian Journalism Award-winning newspaper Azadliq has been forced to suspend publication due to an ongoing financial crisis.
Padraig Reidy: Blasphemy laws protect only power, never people
Religious persecution is real, and should be fought. Freedom of belief is a basic right. But blasphemy laws protect only power, and never people.
Azerbaijani human rights defender charged with high treason
Leyla Yunus has been charged with “high treason (article 274), tax evasion (article 213), illegal entrepreneurship (article 192), forged documentation (article 320) and fraud (article 178.3.2)”, reports Meydan TV.
Only two shades of grey in Azerbaijan
It does not take a lot of time and effort to see that when it comes to Azerbaijan, views on the country’s freedom of expression record split in two. Azerbaijani blogger Arzu Geybulla writes
• Human rights defender Leyla Yunus is detained again