Azeri independent channel closed (Azerbaijan)

[seafan]

Azeri independent channel closed

24 November 2006, 16:31 GMT

The authorities in Azerbaijan have shut down the country's biggest independent broadcaster, ANS.
They said ANS's licence was not renewed because it had violated the broadcasting law and disregarded official warnings and fines.
ANS head Vahid Mustafayev said he had not received any advance notification of the closure.

Critics of the Azeri government say the move is part of a wider campaign against freedom of speech.
The representative of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Baku, Maurizio Pavesi, said he was deeply concerned about the closure of a broadcaster widely considered to be the most objective in the country.

Broadcasting ended when police surrounded the ANS building in the capital and officials switched off its transmitters.

snip

Coincidentally, ANS says its radio channel was taken off the air during a report about an Azeri newspaper editor who had been taken to hospital after a hunger strike.
He had been protesting about the threat and closure of the offices of Azerbaijan's leading opposition newspaper, Azadlig.
Campaigners for media freedom have accused the Azeri government of curbing free speech in recent months by arresting journalists, launching punitive libel suits and trying to silence independent voices such as ANS, the BBC's Matthew Collin reports from the Caucasus.

snip

[seafan]

1. Analyst: "Officials have got full control over all media by closing ANS."

Additional information:

Azerbaijan cuts independent TV station

Fri 24 Nov 2006

BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan's national television and radio authority on Friday ordered the biggest independent broadcaster ANS off the air, ANS vice-president Mirshain Agaev told Reuters.
"We have been told to suspend work from 3 p.m. (1100 GMT) today. They (the regulator) didn't give us any reason," he said.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) condemned the closure.

TV and radio broadcasting stopped as police briefly surrounded the ANS building and officials switched off its transmitter, a Reuters correspondent reported from ANS.

snip

Rights groups have been critical of the government's attitude to human rights and freedom of speech in Azerbaijan, where President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his late father in 2003, keeps a tight grip on power.
Just over two years ago, prominent opposition journalist Elmar Huseinov, an outspoken critic of Azerbaijan's elite, was shot dead outside his home in Baku.

"Officials have got full control over all media by closing ANS," Leila Aliyeva, an independent analyst, told Reuters.
"This is clearly a very serious step to take off the air Azerbaijan's most professional and widely respected broadcaster," a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

[Tempest]

2. Bush: Azerbaijan "becoming increasingly comfortable with democracy"

Friday, April 28, 2006

Bush also praised Azerbaijan as a Muslim nation that is becoming increasingly comfortable with democracy. "We talked about the need for the world to see a modern Muslim country that is able to provide for its citizens, that understands that democracy is the wave of the future," he said.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/04/8CC1CE5A-70BA-4C06-BCCE-9CCF943B3150.html