[Swlfest] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's offices raided in Azerbaijan

[Fansome]

Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 19:08:23 -0500
From: bernieS <bernies@panix.com>
To: swlfest <swlfest@hard-core-dx.com>
Subject: [Swlfest] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's offices raided,
   shut down in  Azerbaijan
 
http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/asia-pacific/55735-141227-us-funded-radio-liberty-in-azerbaijan-raided
 
US-funded Radio Liberty in Azerbaijan raided
 
Reporters Without Borders condemned raid: 'RFE/RL
latest victim of campaign to stamp out media pluralism'
 
Prosecutors in Azerbaijan on Friday raided the
offices of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's
local service, according to its director, who
condemned the move as a crackdown on free media
in the tightly controlled Caucasus nation.
 
Prosecutors searched the offices of US-funded
Radio Azadliq "accompanied by armed police,
saying they have a court order to shut down the
office," its director Kenan Aliyev told AFP.
 
"Our equipment and computers are being
confiscated. Journalists are being forced out of
the office. Our telephone and Internet lines are down," he said.
 
"What happens is just part of an overall
crackdown on free media in Azerbaijan."
 
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders
condemned the raid and said RFE/RL was "the
latest victim of the government's campaign to stamp out media pluralism".
 
"Words fail for describing the scale of the
crackdown under way in Azerbaijan," Johann Bihr,
head of Eastern Europe and Central Asia for
Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.
 
"President Ilham Aliyev?s government is
methodically crushing each of the remaining
independent news outlets one by one.
International bodies and Azerbaijan?s foreign
partners need to respond firmly to such determined ruthlessness."
 
The move came after a prominent investigative
reporter working for Radio Azadliq, Khadija
Ismayilova, was arrested in early December and
placed in pre-trial detention for two months.
 
Amnesty International condemned her arrest as a
move to "gag free media" in Azerbaijan.
 
In a statement earlier this month, President
Aliyev's chief of staff, Ramiz Mehdiev, accused
Radio Azadliq journalists of "treason", calling
them a "fifth column" working for foreign security services.
 
In recent months, Azerbaijani prosecutors have
staged similar raids on other foreign-funded
groups, including the Baku offices of the
Washington-based National Democratic Institute.
 
Dissent in Azerbaijan is often met with a tough
government response. Rights groups say
authorities have been clamping down on opponents
since Aliyev's election to a third term last year.
 
Aliyev, 53, came to power in 2003 following a controversial election.
 
He took over after the death of his father Heydar
Aliyev, a former KGB officer and Communist-era
leader who had ruled newly independent Azerbaijan with an iron fist since 1993.
 
Headquartered in Prague and funded by the US
Congress, RFE/RL broadcasts to 21 countries
across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
 
(AFP)