{"id":62203,"date":"2014-12-05T17:01:07","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T17:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=62203"},"modified":"2017-03-23T16:53:38","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T16:53:38","slug":"azerbaijan-government-arrests-investigative-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=62203","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan: Government arrests investigative journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_55322\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-55322\" class=\"wp-image-55322\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/khadija.jpg\" alt=\"Khadija Ismayilova\" width=\"700\" height=\"403\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/khadija.jpg 603w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/khadija-300x172.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/khadija-250x143.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/khadija-347x200.jpg 347w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-55322\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Khadija Ismayilova<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The arrest of Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova today underscores the entrenched authoritarian instincts of the government of President Ilham Aliyev. Ismayilova was sentenced to a two month pretrial detention.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The arrest of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/10\/azerbaijan-khadija-ismayilova-travel-ban\/\">Khadija Ismayilova<\/a> is part of Azerbaijan&#8217;s continued crackdown on free media and civil society. This confirms the pattern of intimidation and harassment perpetrated by authorities in an attempt to silence critical voices,&#8221; Melody Patry, senior advocacy officer at Index on Censorship, said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UxUgvhds5iA\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Ismayilova&#8217;s arrest follows the earlier detentions of human rights defenders <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?s=Leyla+Yunus&amp;x=0&amp;y=0\">Leyla Yunus<\/a> and her husband Arif Yunus; free speech advocate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?s=Rasul+Jafarov&amp;x=0&amp;y=0\">Rasul Jafarov<\/a>; journalists Seymur Hezi, Parviz Hashimli, Nijat Aliyev and Sardar Alibeyli; and bloggers Omar Mamedov, Abdul Abilov and Rashad Ramazano. The country has starved the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/03\/the-guardian-journalism-award-winner-azadliq\/\">2014 Index award winning Azadliq<\/a> newspaper of resources, forcing it to suspend its print edition. The charges against all of the detainees range from hooliganism to illegal storage and sale of drugs.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s action by Azerbaijan&#8217;s authorities also drew immediate criticism from <a href=\"http:\/\/humanrightshouse.org\/Articles\/20612.html\">Human Rights House Foundation<\/a> Executive Director Maria Dahle and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovi\u0107.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis sentence does not come as a surprise: we assumed the authorities wanted to silence Khadija Ismayilova,\u201d said Dahle. \u201cThe arrest has a chilling effect: one must now consider that every independent civil society leader in Azerbaijan is a target and can be arrested at any given time for any charge, as ludicrous as one can imagine. The international community, especially the Council of Europe, must now get a foot in the door to stop the repression, including by stopping further cooperation with Azerbaijan&#8217;s authorities\u201d, Dahle added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe arrest of Ismayilova is nothing but orchestrated intimidation, which is a part of the ongoing campaign aimed at silencing her free and critical voice,\u201d Mijatovi\u0107 said.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday afternoon,\u00a0Ismayilova&#8217;s usually very active Facebook page was also inaccessible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FBKI.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-62213\" src=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FBKI.jpg\" alt=\"FBKI\" width=\"700\" height=\"475\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FBKI.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FBKI-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/FBKI-294x200.jpg 294w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Azerbaijan, which spends significant amounts on media relations, presents itself as a modern nation. But behind the smokescreen, the country has been carrying out a systematic suppression of civil society, journalists and independent media.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/2014\/12\/arrest-of-investigative-journalist-demonstrates-azerbaijans-authoritarianism\">This article was posted on 5 Dec 2014 at indexoncensorship.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The arrest of Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova today underscores the entrenched authoritarian instincts of the government of President Ilham Aliyev<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7145,8867,581],"tags":[115,103,571,3506,727],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62203"}],"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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62203"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87145,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62203\/revisions\/87145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}