RFE job

Unlike VOA, Ismayilova came to respect RFE/RL.On July 1, 2008, it hired her as Baku bureau chief for its Azerbaijani service. The radio service, known as Radio Azadliq , had operated since 1953. Its Baku bureau opened unofficially in 1994, and was officially registered in 2004. [10] The service broadcast 30-some hours of original programming a week, and rebroadcast an additional 40 hours. One of the first stories Ismayilova covered as bureau chief was the October 2008 presidential election, which the opposition boycotted. President Aliyev won for a second time. His administration then scheduled a referendum for March 2009 to eliminate presidential term limits; if it passed, Aliyev would be able to serve as president for life.

Banned . Coincidentally, it claimed, the National Television and Radio Council on December 30, 2008 announced that henceforth Radio Azadliq, as well as the BBC and Voice of America would be banned from national FM and medium-wave radio frequencies. This built on a 2006 prohibition on the re-broadcast by local radio stations of international programs. The council chairman said the ban was a result of Azeri law and was “in no way connected to politics.” [11] The foreign broadcasters could continue to deliver their programs via satellite, cable and the Internet. But all expected steep declines in audience as a result of the ruling; most Azerbaijani citizens received their news via over-the-air radio and television.


© RFE/RL

It was not an easy time to be a journalist in Azerbaijan. In December 2007, RFE/RL freelance reporter Ilgar Nasibov was sentenced to 90 days in jail on libel charges after he complained about police brutality. [12] In August 2008, Nasibov and another reporter were attacked while interviewing villagers about a ban on public gatherings. Three opposition journalists— Qanimat Zahid, Sakit Zahidov, and Eynulla Fatullayev—were in jail. In 2002, the US-based Freedom House classified Azerbaijan as "partly free" in its "Freedom in the World" report. By 2005, it had downgraded Azerbaijan to "not free" and the 2007 report cited a "decline in press freedom, including President [Ilham] Aliyev's increasingly tight grip on the media." [13] As the media-freedom representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) put it in 2008:

In Azerbaijan, we have seen a deterioration in the security of journalists due to harassment. Many so-called criminal cases have been orchestrated by the prosecutors against independent-minded print media and their editors and journalists. Many of them are even in prison. [14]


[11] Daisy Sindelar, “Azerbaijan bans RFE/RL, other foreign radio from airwaves,” RFE/RL, December 30, 2008. See: http://www.rferl.org/content/Azerbaijan_Bans_RFERL_Other_Foreign_Radio/1364986.html . The council argued that because the government owns the airwaves, they could not be used by international broadcasters.

[12] Broadcasting Board of Governors, Threats to Journalists: Azerbaijan. See: http://www.bbg.gov/broadcasters/journalism-underfire/threats-to-journalists-by-country/azerbaijan/ . Under international pressure Nasibov was released and his sentence suspended.

[13] Kenan Aliyev and Khadija Ismayilova, “Does Council of Europe Matter in Azerbiajan?” RFE/RL, June 24, 2008. See: http://www.rferl.org/content/Commentary_Does_Council_Of_Europe_Matter_In_Azerbaijan/1145037.html . Freedom House was an independent, watchdog organization promoting democracy worldwide.

[14] Sindelar, “Azerbaijan bans RFE/RL, other foreign radio from airwaves.”