(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation after two journalists from an opposition daily were abducted, beaten and humiliated. Editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahidov and technical director Azer Ahmedov, of the daily “Azadlig”, were abducted in the capital, Baku, as they left the newspaper’s offices shortly before midnight (local time) on 25 February 2005. They were threatened, assaulted […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has expressed indignation after two journalists from an opposition daily were abducted, beaten and humiliated.
Editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahidov and technical director Azer Ahmedov, of the daily “Azadlig”, were abducted in the capital, Baku, as they left the newspaper’s offices shortly before midnight (local time) on 25 February 2005. They were threatened, assaulted and humiliated in a restaurant, then forced to sign confessions at 3:00 a.m. at a local police station in Khatai before being released several hours later.
RSF has called on President Ilham Aliyev and Interior Minister Ramil Usubov to see that everything possible is done to quickly find and punish those responsible.
“This is the second case in a month of abductions of opposition journalists under particularly humiliating and degrading circumstances”, the organisation said. “We are outraged by these methods of intimidation and we strongly condemn the brutality of the actions against these journalists, which is a very disturbing indication of the state of press freedom.
“Azadlig” editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahidov, whose newspaper is close to the opposition Popular Front Party, told a press conference on 26 February that he realised he was under threat of attack one week before his abduction. An individual by the name of Maharram Ismailov, driving a BMW, had approached several members of the newspaper’s staff and offered them money in exchange for the editor’s home address. Shortly afterwards, the same man approached Zahidov using a false pretext.
Zahidov described what happened after he and Ahmedov left the “Azadlig” offices. Three well-built men forced them into a white car and took them to a Baku restaurant, The Three Palms. They were taken to a room, the door was locked behind them, and their mobile phones were taken away. They were then joined by prostitutes who were forced to strip and were beaten. The journalists were, in turn, forced to strip and were beaten while their captors took photos.
Zahidov said that while they were being beaten, their abductors told them to stop publishing critical articles about President Aliyev and reporting on riots in the country’s prisons. The journalists were subsequently taken to the Khatai police station, in a Baku suburb, and forced to sign false statements on the orders of two police officers, who told them they were under arrest for “immoral conduct in a public place.” Zahidov noted that the officers themselves appeared to fear retaliation by the men who had attacked the journalists.
Zahidov and Ahmedov both suffered multiple bruises from the attack, particularly around the eyes. Zahidov also complained of serious abdominal pain. He told a 26 February press conference that he would file an official complaint.
The day after the attack, the pro-government TV Lider (run by Adalat Aliyev, great nephew of the late president Heidar Aliyev) showed photos of the naked journalists with the comment, “This is the immoral way in which opposition journalists spend their free time.” The photos were also posted online.
On 28 February, the interior minister confirmed by phone the arrest of the two journalists, saying they had been held for “immoral behaviour” in The Three Palms restaurant in Baku.
This is the second such abduction in Azerbaijan within a month. RSF earlier condemned the abduction of and threats to journalist Akper Hasanov, of the opposition daily “Monitor”. Hasanov was held for almost five hours on 2 February at the Baku military headquarters. Plainclothes soldiers forced the journalist to write a refutation of an article carried by the “Monitor” on 29 January that detailed the horrifying conditions endured by a military unit in the Geranboy region (see IFEX alerts of 4 and 3 February 2005).
