{"id":10603,"date":"2010-04-09T09:29:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T09:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=10603"},"modified":"2016-11-14T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T14:31:03","slug":"azerbaijan-editors-drug-trial-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=10603","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan: Editor’s drug trial begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nEynulla Fatullayev goes on trial on “trumped up” drugs charges while the European Court examines previous charges.\u00a0Vugar Gojayev reports from Azerbaijan<\/strong>
\n
\nA Baku court will today (9 April) open a new trial into the case of imprisoned journalist Eynulla Fatullayev<\/a>, an investigative journalist and staunch critic of Azerbaijani government. If convicted, Fatullayev will face three more years in prison in addition to the eight-and-a-half years term he has been serving since April 2007.<\/p>\n

Prior to his arrest in 2007, Fatullayev was the chief-editor<\/a> of country\u2019s two most outspoken and highest circulated newspapers, Realniy Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan. He was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of defamation, terrorism and tax evasion charges, convictions human rights groups call politically-motivated. Both of his papers have been effectively closed since May 2007.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan has been a member of the Council of Europe since 2001, and in\u00a0late December 2009, at a time when the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) was planning to hear an appeal of Fatullayev’s\u00a02007 convictions, Azeri prosecutors brought a fresh drug-possession charge against Fatullayev, who strongly rejects the accusations and says the drugs were intentionally planted on him.<\/p>\n

The Azeri authorities claim prison guards found 0.223 grams of heroin<\/a> in Fatullayev\u2019s shoes and jacket at Penitentiary #12 — a high-security prison. He has been charged under article 234.1 of Criminal Code (illegal purchase or storage without a purpose of selling narcotics or psychotropic substances in an amount exceeding necessary limit for personal consumption). Miklos Haraszti<\/a>, formally the\u00a0Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on press freedom has said that he \u201cvisited Eynulla Fatullayev twice in his high security-prison and find[s] allegations of heroin smuggling or possession highly improbable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Azeri commentators believe the ECHR decision — expected shortly —- would go against the government and would call for Fatullayev’s immediate release. \u201cKnowing this\u201d, says\u00a0an opposition journalist, \u201cthe authorities invented the new charges to ensure Fatullayev remains in jail no matter what the ECHR decision found.\u201d Naming Fatullayev a \u201cprisoner of consciousness\u201d, Amnesty International argued the drugs charges have been brought as part of an attempt to discredit him further while his case is being reviewed by the ECHR. Fatullayev\u2019s lawyer, Elchin Sadigov<\/a> thinks the \u201ctrumped-up charges were set up by the authorities to prevent the decision of the ECHR in near future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fatullayev has a history of persecution in Azerbaijan, including threats, attacks, and persecution for his writings. Based on his account and the Azerbaijani authorities\u2019 long record of planting drugs to silence the regime critics, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called the charges \u201cfabricated\u201d and \u201cintended to prolong Fatullayev\u2019s stay behind the bars\u201d. Similarly, when another opposition journalist Mirza Sakit<\/a> was sentenced to three years in jail in 2006 for allegedly \u201cselling and using heroin\u201d charges, the human rights groups argued the drugs were planted on Sakit<\/a> during an illegal police search designed to silence him.<\/p>\n

Fatullayev\u2019s case was again in spotlight recently when he made a statement accusing the Ministry of National Security<\/a> (MNS) of masterminding the murder of opposition journalist Elmar Huseynov<\/a> in March 2005. The ministry said the accusations were \u201cslanderous, irresponsible and illogical\u201d and interrogated the editors of leading mass media, including Azadliq Radio, Turan News Agency, and the Musavat and Azadliq newspapers concerning the reasons for the publication of Fatullayev\u2019s sensational statements by these media outlets.<\/p>\n

International right groups have repeatedly raised their concerns about the government\u2019s absolute grip on the media and the deteriorating climate of impunity against opposition journalists. Azerbaijan continues to show a downtrend trajectory in international media freedom indexes, with Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) ranking Azerbaijan 146th<\/sup> out of 175 countries in 2009.<\/p>\n

As the judiciary system in Azerbaijan remains highly corrupt, and notorious for being totally dependent on the executive — often issuing political decisions — few believe the court will fairly investigate the drug charges against Fatullayev. \u201cDuring the trial\u201d, says Fatullayev\u2019s lawyer, \u201cwe will do our best to prove that this conviction is utterly unfounded\u201d.<\/p>\n

Vugar Gojayev is a freelance journalist writing on the developments in the South Caucasus<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eynulla Fatullayev goes on trial on “trumped up” drugs charges while the European Court examines previous charges. Vugar Gojayev<\/strong> reports from Azerbaijan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[8867,581],"tags":[115,875,727,1990],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10603"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10603"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11390,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10603\/revisions\/11390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}