The ECtHR considered the blocking of 4 websites illegal in Azerbaijan
Today, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced its decision on the case “Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and others v. Azerbaijan”.
Applications for 4 sites in Azerbaijan – freedom.org, anakheber.az, az24saat.org and khural.com about the blocking of their websites aihmaz.org according to the information of the legal information website.
As an applicant, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (freedom.org), Azer Talibov (anakheber.az website founder and editor-in-chief), Vugar Alekbarov (az24saat.org website founder) and Avaz Zeynalli (khural.com website founder) spoke.
In Azerbaijan, these sites were blocked in 2017-2018 in accordance with the Law “On Information, Informatization and Information Protection” and the changes made to the Code of Administrative Offenses.
Local courts based these decisions on legislative changes.
The applicants also noted that blocking entire sites, not specific materials, was an excessively harsh measure. According to them, the purpose of blocking the sites was not to prevent the spread of any illegal content, but to prevent criticism of the government.
The applicants raised before the ECtHR the issues of violations of Articles 6 (right to a fair trial), 10 (freedom of expression), 13 (right to an effective remedy) and 18 (limits on the use of restrictions on rights) of the European Convention on Human Rights. .
The ECHR issued a decision to pay each applicant 5,000 euros as compensation for moral damage. Three applicants (anakheber.az, az24saat.org and khural.com) will each be paid 1,000 euros for court costs.