A journalist for nine years, Aytac Tapdiq says the risks of working in media in Azerbaijan have always been present. But in recent months, conditions are getting worse.
The video journalist had been working for the Azeri media outlet Meydan TV for only a few months when authorities first took her in for questioning.
“One day, they forcibly pushed me into a car,” Tapdiq said, adding that she was taken to the organized crime department and questioned.
“Basically, I faced pressure for working at Meydan TV, as soon as I started [as a] journalist. Many doors are closed to independent journalists,” she told VOA.
In years since, Tapdiq says she has been called in for questioning numerous times.
Media and human rights organizations say such experiences are common. Since November, more than 10 journalists and bloggers have been detained in Azerbaijan, including six from the news website Abzas Media.
Often, arrests or pressure are related to coverage of corruption among high-ranking government officials, say media analysts.
Additionally, the government has enacted legislation that requires journalists to sign on to a registry to be able to access officials and news briefings.
The conditions have resulted in Azerbaijan falling on the World Press Freedom Index released May 3. The country currently ranks 164 out of 180, where 1 shows the best environment.
Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, which compiles the index, attributed the 13-point decline to pressure on media and arrests of journalists, including before the February presidential elections.
Jeanne Cavelier, who heads RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, told VOA that Azerbaijan showed the greatest decline of any country in the region over the past year.
Cavelier said that President Ilham Aliyev recently claimed that media freedom is guaranteed and that censorship does not exist. But, she added, “Almost the entire media sector is under official control and any semblance of pluralism has been destroyed.”
Tapdiq said she works with the knowledge that she could one day be arrested.
“As my friends are arrested, my burden increases even more. I feel like Meydan TV is a tree trying to survive in a forest destroyed within the Azerbaijani media,” she said. “My plans for the future begin with the phrase ‘If I don’t get arrested.’”
While Meydan’s team have not faced any arrests or legal pressure in recent years, their website has been blocked inside Azerbaijan since 2017. Authorities said several articles were damaging to the interest of the state.
The news outlet sees the new registry as a further limitation on the work of independent journalism. Only journalists approved on the register are able to access officials and government news briefings.
The government says the register will improve relations between officials and the media. But analysts have warned that it will stifle free media.
“They are using this law to further narrow the media environment for those that have not registered,” said Tapdiq.
Other media experts also believe that restrictions for journalists are increasing.
Mehman Aliyev, head of the independent Turan news agency, told VOA that journalists, especially investigative reporters, “face pressure, persecution.”
He sees the recent arrests as a way to silence or at least limit the range of voices.
“There is no such thing as pluralism in television companies and most government-sponsored websites,” he said. “That is, you cannot see or hear dissenting, free voices there. This is a problem.”
The journalist believes the government should carry out democratic reforms to improve media freedom.
Azerbaijan’s government, however, rejects criticism.
Lawmaker Bahruz Maharramov, a member of the Parliament’s Human Rights Committee, told VOA that the media is free and that conditions are fully ensured to provide everyone with information, and for the diversity of opinion and freedom of activity in media.
But, said Maharramov, “some media organizations in the country actually perform the function of the fifth column. They, along with the institutions of a number of Western actors, act as a tool that has intentions threatening the sovereignty of Azerbaijan.”
This story originated in VOA’s Azeri Service. Nigar Mubariz and Emil Baghirov contributed to this report.
