Stories about Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan: Blowing Up in Their Facebook

  10 March 2011

Baku seems to be getting savvier about how to discredit, marginalize, or monitor online activists. This article was originally published on 9 March 2011 by Transitions Online and is used by permission.

Azerbaijan: As protests loom, Facebook is monitored

  3 March 2011

Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have highlighted the potential use of online social networks for activism, but they have also added weight to existing personal and security concerns. Now, as their own day of protest draws near, online activity by prominent alternative voices in Azerbaijan appears to be monitored.

Azerbaijan: ‘Donkey bloggers’ released

  19 November 2010

Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli, two video blogging youth activists, were conditionally released late this week in Azerbaijan, the oil-rich former Soviet republic. However, both men maintain their innocence while international human rights groups and organizations consider the charges against them to be politically motivated.

Azerbaijan: Free Expression under Attack

  22 October 2010

The report is the result of joint freedom of expression mission undertaken from 7 to 9 September, 2010. The mission representatives met with journalists and bloggers, collected testimonies from survivors of violent attacks, and family members of imprisoned journalists and bloggers, including Hikmet Hajizade, the father of imprisoned blogger Adnan Hajizade. The mission representatives also held meetings with civil society activists and government representatives.

Azerbaijan: Supreme Court Upholds Bloggers’ Conviction

  20 August 2010

On 19 August, the Azerbaijani Supreme Court considered the case of imprisoned bloggers and youth activists Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade. In its decision, the Court upheld the lower courts' rulings, which convicted Milli and Hajizade of hooliganism and sentenced them to two and a half years and two years of imprisonment respectively. The two were arrested on 8 July 2009 after appealing to police as victims of an assault following an incident in which they were attacked in a restaurant.

Azerbaijan: Bloggers sentenced

  11 November 2009

As many of their supporters feared, and on the same day as a round table on the case against two detained video blogging youth activists, a court in Baku, Azerbaijan, earlier passed sentence on Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli. The verdict and first reaction spread on Twitter.   Media Helping...

Azerbaijan: Blogger trial continues

  8 November 2009

In the same week that Threatened Voices, an online project to map bloggers under attack worldwide was launched, the continuing trial of detained video blogging youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli in Baku, Azerbaijan. The last court hearing was adjourned because witnesses did not turn up.

Azerbaijan: Video blogger trial postponed… again

  28 October 2009

In what many consider to be a politically motivated trial to stifle dissent in Azerbaijan, video blogging youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli once again appeared in court today. The two young activists, exemplary in their use of new media in the region, were unexpectedly detained in the early...

Azerbaijan: Appeal of bloggers rejected ahead of National Media Day

  21 July 2009

On 20th of July, Baku Court of Appeals was going to consider the cases of Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, two youth activists and bloggers recently beaten and detained in downtown Baku and then sentenced for two months of pre-trial investigation detention. Friends and acquaintances of the detainees, as well...

Azerbaijan: Activists’ support site goes down

  19 July 2009

Yesterday, as Önər Blog [AZ] reported, the Appellate Court in Baku was to consider again the case of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, the recently beaten and detained youth activists and bloggers sentenced last week. Yesterday, however, one of the main websites created in their defense went down.