BAKU – A court in Azerbaijan sentenced two opposition bloggers to jail terms yesterday in a case that has stirred international concern over freedom of expression in the oil-producing Caspian Sea state.
Adnan Hajizade (26) was sentenced to two years in prison and Emin Milli (30) to two years and six months over an incident in a cafe in Baku, a member of their defence team said.
The two have been held since the incident in July, in which the bloggers say they were the victims of an unprovoked attack which they reported to police.
They were arrested and later charged with hooliganism and inflicting minor bodily harm.
The incident came shortly after Hajizade, a video blogger and member of the OL! opposition movement, posted his latest tongue-in-cheek swipe at the government of President Ilham Aliyev, in which he held a news conference dressed as a donkey.
“There can be no greater honour than to be imprisoned for your ideals,” Milli, a youth activist and blogger, shouted out to the court, to applause from supporters.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said Azerbaijan’s actions were “self-revealingly political”.
“These new imprisonments cement Azerbaijan’s image as the pre-eminent jailer of journalists in the OSCE region,” the OSCE’s media freedom official, Miklos Haraszti, wrote in a letter to Azerbaijan’s foreign minister. “Five journalists are currently in prison, several of them on clearly trumped-up charges following organised provocations and unfair trials,” Mr Haraszti wrote.
The EU had also voiced concern about the trial. – (Reuters)
