Azerbaijan includes 77 newspapers in its press blacklist

Posted by Clara Martínez Turco on August 3, 2010 at 12:55 PM

Azerbaijan's Press Council today published its newest list of "racketeer" publications, which includes 77 newspapers and journals that the group says have violated the country's Journalists' Professional Behavior Rules, the Azerbaijan Press Agency reported.

"This list is a tool for public condemnation of the press, which ignore the professional principles, publish materials, affecting the honor and dignity of people, slander, and commit other such illegal actions," the chairman of the Press Council Aflutun Amashov said, Trend News Agency quoted.

"It envisages not legal, but public responsibility, and publishing the 'black list' aims to form society's reaction to the media of bad tendency," he said while remembering that the named publications are subject to investigation.

Some of the newspapers on the list, which includes the names of the editor-in-chief and the founder of each publication, are Nota, Mufatish, Khalg Nazareti, Ganun ve Gercheklik, Ideal Azerbaijan, Ideal and Taran, News.az revealed.

So far, the largest list that the Press Council has published was presented last year and it included 95 newspapers.

According to the Human Rights XXI Century-Azerbaijan Foundation, 4,000 media outlets are registered in Azerbaijan but only 600 are active. Out of these, 400 are newspapers and magazines.

Reporters Without Boarders reported today that "police prevented the staff of the opposition newspaper Azadlig from entering its premises yesterday at the behest of Agbey Askerov, the head of the state-owned publishing house Azerbaijan, which prints the newspaper."

The country was ranked 146th out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.