{"id":11481,"date":"2010-04-23T11:12:12","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T11:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=11481"},"modified":"2016-11-14T14:29:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T14:29:54","slug":"european-court-azerbaijan-eynulla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=11481","title":{"rendered":"European court orders release of Azeri editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nJudges says Azerbaijan should free journalist Eynulla Fatullayev — Azeri officials announce they will appeal the ruling. Vugar Gojayev reports<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the European Court Human Rights (ECHR) ruled<\/a> that the Azerbaijani government must release imprisoned journalist Eynulla Fatullayev<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2007 after being convicted of defamation, terrorism and tax evasion charges, convictions human rights groups call politically motivated. The court ruled that Fatullayev was currently serving the sentence for offences which violate the European Convention on Human Rights<\/a> and ordered that he be paid\u00a0\u20ac25,000 as compensation.\u00a0The ECHR affirmed that Fatullayev\u2019s rights to freedom of expression and a fair trial have been contravened in Azerbaijan, which has been a member of the Council of Europe since 2001.<\/p>\n

The news raised mixed hopes in Azeri society. Though the country\u2019s authorities say they will challenge the ruling, human rights activists<\/a> believe the government may be forced to comply with the judgment.<\/p>\n

Fatullayev\u2019s father was pleased with the verdict\u00a0but expressed fears said the authorities might attempt to hamper Eynulla\u2019s release from jail . \u201cThe ruling verified that my son was innocent and jailed just because of his journalistic activity. I thank the international community in their firm and objective stance and unanimous support,\u201d he said. Well-known journalist Shahveled Chobanoglu argued that \u201cthe verdict was an important victory for the suppressed activists and outspoken journalists\u201d in Azerbaijan, which has a long record of stifling at the media freedom and suppressing\u00a0dissent.<\/p>\n

But, the government seems a long way from accepting the ECHR\u2019s verdict. Chingiz Esgerov<\/a>, Azerbaijan\u2019s representative in the ECHR, argued that \u201cthe ECHR has no authority to give orders to the courts of other countries\u201d and \u201cthe country\u2019s legislation does not envision the release of a prisoner only on a basis of the ECHR\u201d. The government has vowed to take the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR \u201cto support the interests of Azerbaijan Republic\u201d. In practice, the decision of the ECHR comes into force within three months of its issuance provided that a motion is not presented to consider the case in the Grand Chamber.<\/p>\n

Intigam Aliyev, a well-known lawyer said the verdict will not change, even if the authorities manage to appeal it before the Grand Chamber. \u201cRegardless of any further court instances at the ECHR, the ultimate decision will be in favor of Fatullayev, as the gross violation of his rights is crystal-clear and was substantiated by the objective and professional lawyers of the ECHR\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read more on the Eynulla Fatullayev case and his most recent trial on \u201ctrumped up\u201d drugs charges<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Judges says Azerbaijan should free journalist Eynulla Fatullayev — Azeri officials announce they will appeal the ruling. Vugar Gojayev<\/strong> reports from Baku<\/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":[8867,1],"tags":[115,2130,875,117,1990],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481"}],"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=11481"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11494,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11481\/revisions\/11494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}