OSCE Official for Media Freedom urges Baku to stop blocking news websites

Harlem Désir, the OSCE Official on Media Freedom, has called on Azerbaijani authorities to urgently reform the country's mass media legislation. Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has cancelled the blocking of one of the news websites – the "arqument.az".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 7-8, the courts in Baku ruled to block four news websites – the "az24saat.org", "xural.com", "arqument.az" and "monitortv.info". The websites were punished for criticizing the authorities, the NGOs have stated.

"The website blocking is an extreme measure that can drown out critical voices ... This negatively affects the media pluralism and the freedom of expression," Mr Désir has stated.

The authorities claim that some articles posted on these websites contain defamation of some officials, the statement of the OSCE Official says.

On July 23, Harlem Désir asked authorities to explain the reasons for blocking the websites "bastainfo.com", "criminalaz.com", "topxeber.az" and "fia.az" after their publication about power outages and riots in the city of Ganja.

Osman Gyunduz, an expert in the IT sphere and the president of the "Azerbaijani Internet Forum", has noted that news websites were the target of blocking.

"Restrictive measures may be applied to gambling, pornographic and other websites of this sort. However, in Azerbaijan, just news websites are blocked for some unknown reason," he has added.