Azeri journalists face new restrictions on reporting from frontlines

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijani journalists who report from areas near frontlines facing Armenian forces will be subjected to new restrictions, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting said, according to Asbarez.

The government of Azerbaijan believes this is because reporters are getting things wrong and giving away state secrets, but critics of the move say it will silence attempts to find out what is going on in under-reported parts of Azerbaijan.

Plans for stricter regulation of the press were announced by President Ilham Aliyev in August, with an order to prevent confidential information on defense matters being published in the media, including the internet. He also called for the prosecution of anyone engaged in “leaking state secrets.”

Finally, he instructed the government to come up with new rules to govern the way journalists are given accreditation to report from frontline areas.

Aliyev’s instructions came after a sudden rise in violence in the Karabakh conflict zone. The increased level of violence seen this summer has since subsided, but it seems to have left the government in Baku much more concerned about controlling the flow of reporting and other information from frontier zones.

Defense ministry spokesman Vaqif Dargahli said the president was right to be worried about national security given what he called “unprofessional, illegal activities – sometimes serving Armenian interests – on the part of some of the media, and particular internet resources and social media users.”

Alleged breaches of secrecy have also been cited as justification for a plan to make internet users register so that all comments are posted under their real names.

The authorities have also accused prominent human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus and journalist Rauf Mirqadirov of passing secret information to Armenia.

Afgan Mukhtarli is a journalist who regularly reports from frontline areas, and he points out that if security precautions are so poor that a reporter is able to spot an arms shipment on the move in Azerbaijan, the Armenians can probably find out about it anyway.

“I don’t think journalists need to protect defense secrets – that isn’t our job,” he said, arguing that the restrictions the government was planning were unconstitutional and contrary to international law. Furthermore, he said, “The defense ministry conceals information on the deaths of soldiers both in combat and in non-combat situations as it believes it is not in the national interest for that to get out. But the reverse is true – the ministry should be giving the public accurate information.”

Mukhtarli fears that tighter regulations will leave journalists reliant on whatever the defense ministry and other security service choose to make public.

For people who live in border villages, curbs on journalists visiting them will make it harder for them to get their voices heard.

“We aren’t heard anyway – we don’t get sensible coverage in the media. And now comes this ban,” said Ilgar Mustafayev, a villager from the northwest Qazakh district close to Armenia. “The authorities just want to ensure that our countless problems don’t get out. Frontier and frontline villages aren’t secret installations for journalists to be banned from going there and gathering material unhindered.”