Radio Station Backed by U.S. Is Raided in Azerbaijan
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Version 0 of 1. MOSCOW — A dozen employees of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Azerbaijan were arrested and detained for up to 12 hours of questioning over the weekend, as state prosecutors intensified a crackdown on journalists and nongovernmental organizations that has drawn sharp criticism in the West. On Friday, prosecutors and the police raided the station’s office in Baku, the nation’s capital. Employees were detained as officials seized computers, flash drives, documents and other materials, and then sealed the premises. The station, locally called Radio Azadliq, which means “liberty” in Azerbaijani, has been a target of the authorities for years. Its FM broadcast was shut down along with the BBC radio service and the Voice of America in 2009 (the broadcasts can still be heard on satellite and over the Internet). This month, the government jailed a well-known investigative reporter, Khadija Ismayilova, who had worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as well as other news organizations. Ms. Ismayilova, who remains in custody, had angered high-level officials by reporting on the business dealings of the family of President Ilham Aliyev. On Saturday night, the authorities began arresting employees of the radio station, in some cases taking them from their homes, said Kenan Aliyev, the director of the Azerbaijani service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who is based in Prague. Kamran Mahmudov, the anchor of a daily news talk show called “After Work,” was taken to the prosecutor’s office in his pajamas, said Mr. Aliyev of the radio service. On Sunday morning, officials even detained the station’s cleaning woman. All the employees were released, though more were expected to be questioned on Monday. No charges had been filed. “The prosecutors are terrorizing our staff,” Mr. Aliyev said. “Azadliq is the last island of free speech in Azerbaijan and now it is under frontal assault.” The government has accused the station and its employees of espionage and of being a foreign-financed entity. On the last point, there is no debate. Radio Free Europe has been financed by the American government since it was founded in 1953, during the Cold War; the Baku station opened in the 1990s. Supporters of President Aliyev have warned that foreign-backed organizations could be plotting a revolution in Baku, modeled after the Arab Spring, or the mass street protests in Ukraine that toppled that country’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, in February. The Azerbaijani government has also accused some nongovernmental organizations and local activists of collaborating with Armenia, the neighbor with which it has been at war for more than 20 years over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. “Every place that works for foreign intelligence and the Armenian lobby should be searched,” Siyavoush Novrusov, an official with the governing Yeni Azerbaijan party, told a local news site, Media Forum. Even as Azerbaijan has tried to silence dissenters, the small, oil-rich nation has aggressively courted favor in Europe in recent years. It is spending billions, for instance, as the host of the first-ever European Games, which are scheduled to be held in Baku in June. |