{"id":1499,"date":"2014-12-10T11:32:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T10:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2014-12-10T11:32:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T10:32:24","slug":"azerbaijan-puts-investigative-journalist-khadija-ismayilova-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/2014\/12\/10\/azerbaijan-puts-investigative-journalist-khadija-ismayilova-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan puts investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"block-highlight\">\n<p><font color=\"red\">LATEST UPDATE<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Please join our solidarity action and send your support letter to the Azerbaijani authorities in your country. Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.embassypages.com\/azerbaijan#embassiesof\">list of the\u00a0Azerbaijani embassies<\/a> around the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The EFJ affiliate, the Norwegian Union of Journalists, responded to the EFJ call and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/249732583\/Azerbaijan-Embassy-12-14-from-NRK?secret_password=64XNtKaTC6hQEAutYJB7\">sent a letter to the Norwegian Embassy of Azerbaijan <\/a>calling on the authorities to release immediately investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.<\/li>\n<li>The EFJ affiliate, SDP, the Polish Journalists Association, joined the protest and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sdp.pl\/informacje\/10617,apel-cmwp-sdp-do-grzegorza-schetyny-w-sprawie-aresztowania-azerskiej-dziennikarki,1418125789\">sent\u00a0a letter to the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs<\/a>,\u00a0Mr Grzegorz Schetyna ,\u00a0in which they\u00a0appeal for public disapproval of the proceeding by the Azerbaijani authorities.<\/li>\n<li>EFJ also <a href=\"http:\/\/ifj.org\/fileadmin\/images\/EFJ\/EFJ_documents\/lettertoAzerbaijanAmbassador.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">sent a letter\u00a0to the Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Belgium<\/a> to\u00a0demands the immediate release of Khadija Ismayilova.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today has called on the Azerbaijan authorities to immediately release the prominent investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, following the order of a two-month preventative detention.<\/p>\n<p>According to media reporting, Ismayilova has been sent to prison for two months following a trial in an Azerbaijani court in Baku on 5 December in which she was accused of provoking the attempted suicide of Tural Mustafayev.<\/p>\n<p>Ismayilova was arrested following the accusation of Mustafayev, a former contributer to <em>Radio Azadlyg<\/em> and another opposition media platform, <em>Meydan TV<\/em>, that she was the cause of his attempted suicide. Before Ismayilova\u2019s arrest, 15 police officers went to her house and conducted searches.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThis is an absurd charge against Ismayilova by the authorities to silence critical voices in Azerbaijan,\u201d said Ricardo Guti\u00e9rrez, the EFJ General Secretary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is clearly an another attempt by the government to intimidate journalists like Ismayilova who dare to report the truth and spoke out against the authorities in the country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ismayilova, an Azerbaijan investigative journalist who has published a series of exposes on government corruption, has also been charged with libel in a separate case. In October, <a href=\"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/18\/azerbaijan-stop-harassment-against-investigative-journalist-khadija-ismayilova\/\">the EFJ together with the International Partnership Group<\/a> on Azerbaijan has condemned the ongoing harassment and politically motivated criminal charges against her.<\/p>\n<p>Ismayilova was searched for five hours upon arrival at the airport and given a travel ban following her trip to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n<p>The EFJ has repeatedly raised the alarming situation of media freedom in Azerbaijan where journalists face judicial harassment. To highlight this worrying trend, the EFJ Annual Meeting on 21 \u2013 22 November in Moscow has <a href=\"http:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/11\/Resolutions-2014.pdf\">adopted a resolution on solidarity with imprisoned journalists and against judicial harassment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Photo credit: AP\/Todd Williamson)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LATEST UPDATE Please join our solidarity action and send your support letter to the Azerbaijani authorities in your country. Here&#8217;s the list of the\u00a0Azerbaijani embassies around the world. The EFJ affiliate, the Norwegian Union of Journalists, responded to the EFJ call and sent a letter to the Norwegian Embassy of Azerbaijan calling on the authorities to release immediately investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova. The EFJ affiliate, SDP, the Polish Journalists Association, joined the protest and sent\u00a0a letter to the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs,\u00a0Mr Grzegorz Schetyna ,\u00a0in which they\u00a0appeal for public disapproval of the proceeding by the Azerbaijani authorities. EFJ also&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,8],"tags":[35,138],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-press-freedom","category-press-releases","tag-azerbaijan","tag-press-freedom-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/europeanjournalists.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}