This time, the European Court will announce its decision regarding the complaint of media organizations
A decision will also be made on the case of the complainants who said they were subjected to torture and ill-treatment
On June 13, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will announce 2 decisions and rulings regarding the applications sent from Azerbaijan.
In the case “Radio Freedom and others v. Azerbaijan” – the applicants are 4 online media resources or founders, editors-in-chief. They are Azer Talibov, founder and editor of “Radio Liberty”, “anaxeber.az” online news portal, Vugar Alekbarov, founder of “az24saat.az” online news portal, and Avaz Zeynalli, editor-in-chief of “khural.com” website.
In 2017-2018, changes were made to the Law “On Information, Informatization and Information Protection” and the Code of Administrative Offenses regarding the regulations on the dissemination of information. After those changes, access to the four applicant online media from within Azerbaijan was completely blocked. Local courts based their decisions on changes to the legislation.
The local courts considered that some of the contents published in the mentioned media were prohibited contents according to the media legislation of Azerbaijan. The courts concluded that the “azadliq.org” website “propagates violence and religious extremism and calls for mass riots”, and other websites spread “false, misleading and slanderous information” and decided to block them.
The applicants claimed before the court that the blocking of the entire Internet resource, not specific contents, was extremely severe. According to them, the purpose of blocking was not to prevent the spread of some illegal content, but to prevent content criticizing the government. The applicants allege a violation of Articles 6, 10, 13 and 18 of the Convention against them.
“Zakir Mustafayev et al. v. Azerbaijan” – the court case is related to the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment of the applicants who were charged with crimes during their detention and arrest. The applicants alleged that they had been tortured to obtain confessions. Claiming that they suffered various physical injuries, that they were not allowed to reach the lawyers of their choice, and that their families were not informed about their arrest, the applicants contested the violation of Articles 3 and 10 of the Convention before the ECHR.
Freedom of expression media in Azerbaijan, blocking of websites that publish a different position is a process that has been going on for many years. The number of blocked sites is more than 10. These sites can only be accessed through VPNs within the country.