Uncensored journalism in censored times: Challenges of reporting on Azerbaijan

Direct and visible tools of control

The history of media censorship in Azerbaijan has been a decades-long struggle between advocates for media freedom and access to information and governmental authorities seeking full control over the media. This became especially acute under the leadership of current President Ilham Aliyev, who came to power in 2003, replacing his father Haydar Aliyev in elections marred by violations and international criticism. One international organization described the elections as corrupt: ‘too much manipulation, too many arrests, and too many beatings have taken place already for the presidential election to be considered free and fair’ (Human Rights Watch, 2003). Despite the fact that the elections failed to meet international standards and were subject to widespread criticism, Aliyev junior remains in power to this day.

One of the first signals that Aliyev was set to control the media was in November 2006, when the National Television and Radio Council (NRTC) refused to renew the licence of the ANS TV-Azerbaijan News Service, at the time a leading TV and radio news platform. Founded in 1991 by journalists Vahid Mustafayev and Mirshahin Aghayev, it was known for its portrayals of Azerbaijan’s 1988–1994 war with Armenia. The news agency lost its accreditation and its equipment was confiscated. Following this decision, ANS executives wrote a letter to the NRTC that admitted ‘probably, sometimes we expressed maximalism, were very emotional, and sometimes made some mistakes’ (Ismayilov, 2006). The following month, on December 11, during an extraordinary session of the NRTC, Chairman Nushiravan Maharramli said, ‘taking into account President Ilham Aliyev’s position, and the numerous appeals we have received, as well as to encourage harmony in society, we have decided to permit ANS to resume broadcasting’ (Ismailov, 2006). When ANS TV returned, it had changed its approach to newsmaking, practicing self-censorship and cherry picking its stories. This scenario repeated itself 10 years later (IREX, 2013), when ANS was again closed down. The channel’s founder penned another letter addressed to the late President Heydar Aliyev, ‘reminding the deceased leader of his earlier willingness to protect the channel’. But times had changed and even a letter like this one did not bring back ANS. As of July 2016, ANS no longer exists, and its founder joined the ranks of mouthpiece media platforms through a new channel, Real TV.

Other restrictions have accumulated over the years, many targeting foreign media content. In 2006, the authorities decided to ban domestic television and radio from retransmitting foreign programmes: ‘something that threatened to limit the broadcasting of shows produced by the US-funded VoA, RFE/RL and BBC’ (Welt, 2014). Two years later, on October 15, 2008, President Ilham Aliyev secured a second term with 88.7 percent of the vote. The OSCE mission concluded that while ‘the election took place in a peaceful environment’, it was ‘characterized by a lack of robust competition, a lack of vibrant political discourse, and a restrictive media environment, and thus did not reflect some of the principles necessary for a meaningful and pluralistic democratic election’. (OSCE/ODIHR, 2008: 1). That same month, Aliyev ‘secured’ a second victory, when Azerbaijan’s National Television and Radio Council announced its decision to ban international radio stations from broadcasting on national frequencies. This decision affected the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe’s Azerbaijan Services. Finalized on December 30, 2008, and effective on January 1, 2009, the decision was justified by arguing that national FM and medium wave radio frequencies were the property of the government, and therefore international broadcasters could not use them.

It was not long before similar punitive measures were aimed at digital media. In February 2009, the authorities took yet another step to curb media freedom in Azerbaijan, shutting down a popular online news website, Day.az. The website, one of the most pluralistic media outlets offering news in the Russian, English and Azerbaijan languages, was owned by a member of parliament, Anar Mammadkhanov, who at the time said the sites were down due to reconstruction work and that they would be back online in a few weeks. When the website reopened, its management had changed and so had its content. Advertisements were removed, a sign the site no longer needed them for financial stability.

Bloggers and social media users also caught the government’s eye. In 2009, the first case of arrested bloggers put Azerbaijan under the spotlight, when two youth activists were sentenced to jail on bogus hooliganism charges and became known internationally as the ‘Donkey Bloggers’ (RFERL, 2010). Their case signalled a new trend in governmental crackdown, shifting from persecuting traditional opposition members to youth activists who had no political affiliation but enjoyed popularity for their offline activism, information, educational initiatives and lectures. Two years later, Jabbar Savalan, a history student at the time and member of the opposition Popular Front party, called on his friends to join him in what he called the ‘Day of Rage’ in a Facebook post. One of many youth activists inspired by the uprisings in the Middle East, his actions drew attention to the rampant corruption, rights violations and government mismanagement in Azerbaijan. A series of groups were set up on Facebook hoping to change the status quo. But instead of seeing the hoped-for change, it was activists who were targeted. Scores of them were detained, some charged like Savalan, who was sentenced on charges of illegal drug possession (Krikorian, 2011), or activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, who was sentenced to 2 years on charges of evading military service, receiving the maximum sentence for this offence (Lomsadze, 2011).

By 2012, corruption allegation scandals were shaking up the political scene, and media practitioners sought to document the violations. An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) discovered that the ruling family had personally profited from the construction of a massive concert hall, the Crystal Hall (RFERL, 2012a). The same year, an investigative documentary film revealed how companies owned by Teliasonera (namely Azercell) allowed for ‘black box’ probes to be fitted with their telecommunication networks. These boxes made it possible for security services and police to monitor in real-time and without any judicial oversight all communications, including texts, internet traffic and phone calls. It was no coincidence that by 2012, a dozen journalists and bloggers were behind bars.

Alongside such acts of intimidation, the Azerbaijani Parliament adopted a series of legislative amendments that more subtly hampered information gathering. New legislation no longer obliged Azerbaijani companies to disclose information pertaining to their registration, ownership structure and shareholders. In addition, the President and his wife were granted lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution. Finally, that year the Parliament extended defamation and insult offences to cover online content, thus creating a chilling effect for free expression online (CPJ, 2013; Eurasianet, 2012; RFERL, 2012).

The year 2014 marked a turning point in overall freedoms in Azerbaijan, as scores of prominent rights defenders, activists and journalists ended up behind bars on spurious charges. The same year, authorities raided the office of the Azerbaijan Service for Radio Free Europe and arrested the former bureau chief, Khadija Ismayilova. An award-winning investigative journalist, Ismayilova had been blackmailed with sex tapes in 2012 for exposing corruption (Asadzade and Ismayilova, 2010), and targeting the ruling family and government (Geybulla, 2019a). After her arrest in 2014, Ismayilova was sentenced to 7.5 years on bogus charges of tax evasion, abuse of power and so on. She was released in 2016 on probation, placed under a travel ban, and in September 2019 denied a request to annul the remainder of her sentence. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concluded that the authorities in Azerbaijan violated her rights to privacy and freedom of expression by failing to effectively investigate the sex tape case and that Ismayilova’s 7.5-year prison sentence was carried out in order to ‘silence and punish her for her work as a journalist’ (European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), 2020). She continues her work from Azerbaijan at the time of writing this article having completed the period of her sentence. Recently, she was able to travel to Ankara, Turkey.

This trajectory of indirect and visible tools highlights how ongoing and patterned has been Azerbaijan’s attitude toward free expression. Systematically broadening across media, channel, content, population and group, it reveals that access to independent information is one of the biggest threats to the ruling regime in Azerbaijan. It fears mass awareness of the reality behind the grand image of wealth and power, an image which the authorities have been building for years for an international audience to see. Over the course of this time, the ruling government succeeded at sidelining many of the existing independent voices. By preventing any flow of independent news, that went together with dismantling civil society at large, ruling Azerbaijan succeeded at eliminating any potential threat to its power structure while establishing an Orwellian like government structure, with big brother constantly watching over its citizens.

Stealthy and direct tools of control

At the same time as the Azerbaijani government has been involved in implementing a populous list of indirect and visible mechanisms to restrict and repress media practitioners, it also has taken stealthy and direct measures to achieve the same aim.

In Azerbaijan, journalists have been killed as a result of their work (CPJ, 2021), intimidated, beaten, arrested and jailed (IFEX, 2020), while the national legislation has been amended in order to prevent access to public information or fine journalists for their work (Media Landscapes, 2019). Journalists providing favourable reporting of the ruling government, have received free housing on several occasions (BBC, 2011; HRW, 2017). Most recently, a new restrictive media law is discussed, and if approved by the parliament, it would require Internet television platforms, to obtain licences from a government body (Azerbaijan Internet Watch, OONI, 2021). At present, at least 10 independent and opposition online newspapers are blocked in Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan Internet Watch, OONI, 2021). The practice of arbitrary, government-imposed restrictions began as early as 2003 (RSF, 2004). Sophisticated surveillance equipment is used against journalists and civil society actors at large at least since 2008 (Amnesty International, 2017; Geybulla, 2019; OCCRP, 2015). Hacking attempts and DDoS attacks against independent and opposition news platforms and their social media platforms are common while state-sponsored trolling is used to mute out critical and independent reporting (Geybulla, 2019; Wong and Harding, 2021).

In 2014, Azerbaijan investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova revealed that the country’s largest telecom company had ties to the ruling family, namely the two daughters of President Ilham Aliyev, raising questions about Internet surveillance and communications security (Ismayilova, 2014). The same year, CitizenLab identified Azerbaijan as being among the potential customers of a Milan-based hacking team that sold surveillance equipment called Remote Control System (RCS) to countries whose rights and freedoms record was marred with violations. RCS allows for the extraction of files from a targeted device, intercepting emails and instant messaging, as well as remotely activating a device’s webcam and microphone. Moreover, the same CitizenLab report identified an active endpoint in Azerbaijan that had been active between June and November 2013 – the year when Azerbaijan held its presidential election (October) and accidentally announced results over an app before the voting even began (The Washington Post, 2013).

One year later, the Azerbaijan government expressed interest in purchasing Dataminr technology for its ability to ‘explore an individual’s past digital activity on social media and discover an individual’s interconnectivity and interactions with others on social media’. The government also purchased specialized security equipment – Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) – to be used to monitor and block social media during the first European Games, which Baku was hosting in 2015. The equipment was purchased for US$ 3million from an Israeli company, Allot Communications. In 2016, before access to independent online news platforms was blocked, evidence pointed to the government’s involvement in generating artificial internet network congestion within Azerbaijan to prevent access to RFERL Azerbaijan Service, VoA and Meydan TV. In March 2017, the same DPI technology that had been purchased in 2015 was used to block some of the main independent media platforms in the country. That same year, Azerbaijan purchased another Israeli surveillance product, Verint Systems, which was used in targeting LGBTW+ persons on Facebook (Haaretz, 2018). What all of this points to is that the volume of digital attacks on representatives of civil society in Azerbaijan has been on the rise across the aughts and especially since 2018.

At the same time, authorities in Azerbaijan have relied on fines, libel charges and other financial restraints against critical media outlets. Slander is a criminal offence, punishable by 3–5 years of imprisonment. The authorities have used social media manipulation, deploying computation propaganda around certain political events such as protests, rallies and elections while state sponsored trolls engage in dissemination of disinformation. On September 23, 2019, a VoA correspondent was abruptly stopped by the police while filming a protest outside the Grave Crimes Investigation Unit in Baku. During the confrontation with the police, Taptig Farhadoglu’s camera and microphone were confiscated and he was taken to the police station against his will and without explanation, where his phone was taken away from him. He was not allowed to call his lawyer or his friends. He was then let go, told that he should not engage in similar acts. No further explanations were given. Similarly, several journalists were harassed by the police while covering the protests in the capital Baku, after highly contested parliamentary vote in February, 2020 (RSF, 2020). In March, 2020, at least 10 journalists were harassed by the police while filming a group protesting outside the embassy of Turkey in Baku (Aliyarli, 2020). At least six journalists and bloggers were detained during mass protests on July 14, 2020 and held for 48 hours before getting released (Kucera, 2020).

The emergence of digital persecution that is heavily reliant on expensive surveillance technology acquired over the years attests to how determined the ruling government is in silencing dissent, not just offline but also online. Much of what was described already points to the fact that in Azerbaijan, state control over the Internet is an element of a state’s right to self-governance within its sovereign borders (Sherman, 2019). This is an argument that government representatives often rely on whenever the country’s leadership is subject to any international criticism. It also indicates that Azerbaijan is relying on an ad hoc model utilizing legal, technical and administrative means for surveillance and intimidation, used in the case of Russia, for example (Polyakova and Meserole, 2019). Extending and exercising such widespread control mechanisms leaves virtually no space for civil society to continue its work.

Deliberate targeting as a last resort

Targeting in Azerbaijan does not always end with digital attacks, imprisonment or prosecution. There are journalists who are targeted deliberately, killed for their work and whose perpetrators were never found. Stories of countless other journalists are not mentioned here, who, although released from jail, continue to face intimidation by the political elite. Some cannot leave the country because foreign missions will not issue them travel visas, fearing they would never return. There are journalists whose family members have been persecuted and some who had family members denounce them out of fear of being persecuted.

Leaving the country, in pursuit of safety, does not necessarily guarantee immediate safety and comfort (Milazzo, 2017). Many Azerbaijani journalists who ended up leaving the country as a result of persecution or fearing imprisonment spent years in refugee camps, awaiting their papers, unable to practice their trade, while being criticized at home for choosing the easier path of escape. Often, family members who remained in the country were impacted, losing their jobs, being routinely called in for questioning, or being sentenced to administrative detention (Gogia, 2016).

One additional form of pressure and intimidation is that of online hate and harassment. I turn here to my own experience as an Azerbaijani journalist, now exiled in Turkey. In 2014, I was at the centre of a defamation campaign. I was accused of being a traitor and was labelled an enemy of the state. In just a few months, many years of work and a professional career were shattered, thanks to an ongoing online harassment campaign that crept from all sides - Facebook, Twitter, email, posted as comments under my articles. There was no point in trying to talk sense into the authors of slurs and derogatory language. But when death threats and rape threats replaced the usual offensive nonsense, I realized this was not something fuelled by national sentiments only (Geybulla, 2016). It was a clearly targeted campaign aimed at tarnishing my reputation and making me feel afraid.

As a result, I decided not to return to Azerbaijan, and I remain living in Turkey. To this day, I fear the fate that faced other journalists would await me were I to take the risk of going back. While my reputation was being shredded into tiny pieces and scattered across the internet, another Azerbaijani journalist was being accused of a similar crime – spying for the enemy state. Rauf Mirkadirov was extradited from Turkey back to his native Azerbaijan, where he was first arrested and later sentenced to 6 years in prison.

There is an on-going ironic joke among colleagues when looking through old photographs with everyone in one picture frame, free and full of energy. The joke is ‘and they knew nothing of what was yet to come’. Many colleagues whom I knew personally or worked with in the past have had their fair share of persecution and intimidation. Some ended up in jail, some fled the country. The gradual change of control mechanisms in the country that crept in over the years achieved what many of my colleagues usually say when released from jail – ‘we may be free from prison, but now we are in a much bigger prison’. If we go back to the censorship matrix, the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan succeeded in building a bigger prison, using the tools at hand in order to safeguard themselves for as long as they remain in power, something like a life time insurance policy.

What does all of this tell us? Azerbaijan’s media environment is deeply weakened, reflecting none of the recognizable signs of a vibrant media ecosystem. Instead, it includes journalists and media outlets that have been prosecuted and no longer exist on paper or online. Journalists who have been released from detention or prison but have no place to work because their newsrooms have been destroyed. Journalists who have given up on journalism due to pressure on them or their loved ones. Pockets of independent media that have moved online and continue their work despite the new threat of DDoS attacks, website blocking and other forms of sophisticated surveillance technology. Exiled journalists, like myself and even exiled newsrooms with reporters on the ground but anonymous or without a safety net.

Media in exile

The risks and opportunities offered by exile are worth noting here, largely because it has been so central to the Azerbaijani case. There are two types of exiled media communities: individual journalists and exiled newsrooms. In the case of the former, journalists might continue working with their editors abroad and produce stories without access to face to face interviews. Some, if language allows, collaborate with international newsrooms that have a regional focus on Azerbaijan. Yet individual reporting from exile is challenging on several levels. This includes not having direct access to sources, the loss of personal visibility, a lack of trust between reporters and sources, the inability to choose the right communication tools for reaching out to sources (not all sources have smart phones or access to the internet). Often one is only able to speak once with a source, so if information is missing it is difficult to retrieve. It is harder for journalists working individually, for a network of reliable colleagues can help with additional contacts or research.

Some individual journalists in exile have the opportunity to collaborate with an exiled newsroom. Most exiled newsrooms have a team of correspondents on the ground. These newsrooms often establish their individual communication channels with sources, and on-the-ground teams have safety mechanisms in place. The biggest risk is if one member of the team is detained or arrested, though virtual break-ins into social media accounts, DdoS attacks against websites, phishing attacks and blocked access are also common. Some news media have stopped using websites as a result of relentless attacks and instead rely solely on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. But even then, they must deal with hacking attempts, account take-down requests and of course trolls. On June 18, 2020 Meydan TV’s Facebook page was hacked and nearly all of its content was deleted from the social media platform (CPJ, 2020). These attacks can become so severe that journalists end up defending themselves and their platforms at the expense of producing stories. These online and offline attacks recur because these newsrooms deliver news normally unavailable on state media platforms, regardless of threats, intimidation or persecution.

All media in exile face the challenge of outreach: how to provide credible, balanced reporting from afar. For instance, the challenges of getting to the front line, in the case of the ongoing conflict with Armenia, requires obtaining permission from the central government as well as regional administrative offices. Though always hard to obtain, this becomes even harder when in exile. It is only through local journalists and their contacts that media in exile can report about the conflict.

During the initial exodus of Azerbaijani journalists that coincided with the crackdown against civil society between 2013 and 2015, many chose neighbouring countries, locations where there were no visa requirements, or some community or group of friends that could provide what little support was possible. But quickly, many of these countries became less safe, as journalists began sharing stories of being watched, their photos taken on the streets, unknown men showing up at their doorsteps. Going further away to countries in Europe and beyond thus became common. This is not an easy journey, and it often requires patience, contacts and an understanding that one may not be going back for years to come. When emigrating to a foreign country, one often needs to provide a certain type of entrance visa and endure a lengthy process that can drag on for months, if not longer. Procedures vary country by country, and the rules may change mid-stream (CPJ, 2014). Staying at temporary homes, shelters or camps without any other choice or control over the process is common. And even when permission to stay and work is granted, the chances of finding a suitable job as a reporter in a foreign country, often unable to speak the local language, are slim.

As my own experience has taught me, in addition to creating a physical obstacle for reporting purposes, being in exile while still trying to cover the country means an ongoing struggle with the remaining civil society. It means risking family members who remain in the country and then lose their jobs, get called in for questioning, even get sentenced to administrative detention.

What does Azerbaijan’s media environment teach us about how exiled media operate? The good news despite all that has been said so far is that there is hope. New technologies, though used against civil society by authoritarian regimes, also help build new initiatives. The Internet, though a place for trolls and online hate, is sufficiently large for new ideas and for accommodating alternative sources of information.

When in 2014, the Baku bureau of Azadliq Radio, Azerbaijan Service for Radio Free Europe was raided and later shut down for operation, it was not yet clear how one of the most popular and trustworthy news media outlets would continue its work. Similarly, when Meydan TV closed its Baku office, fearing a similar fate, its team in Berlin asked the same question: how do we move forward?

Importantly, exile breeds innovation. As Azerbaijani journalism has reestablished itself in exile, many kinds of alternative media platforms have emerged, displaying different reporting styles. HamamTimes is one of these platforms. With a mission to reach larger audiences using social media platforms, HamamTimes aims to strengthen the resilience of Azerbaijani society by keeping it informed and providing it with independent news that is produced abroad. Instead of producing classical style news reports, this platform resorts to visual content, emulating BuzzFeed. Its popularity in Azerbaijan has given it the opportunity to also share concrete campaigns and requests. When the country’s prominent blogger Mehmah Huseynov was facing new charges in prison, HamamTimes reached out to its audience, asking people to share #FreeMehman and they did, helping to elevate the campaign. It was thanks to these and many other efforts that eventually the charges were dropped, and Mehman was released from prison after completing his original sentence.

Other examples of innovation have experimented with content forms in different ways. Mikroskop Media offers explainers and visuals as a way of presenting information, while Sancaq TV is a socio-political magazine that is active on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Its editor Mehman Huseynov relies on visual content to illustrate issues in the country. One of his most watched rubrics was called ‘Hunt for corrupt officials’, in which Huseynov filmed the businesses and properties of government officials so as to document the extent of corruption within the governing structure (Geybullayeva, 2019b). Similarly, Ekinci, an online educational platform, makes informative animated videos on topics ranging from human rights, to gender equality and other social, political and economic issues. Drawing a significant audience, it relies heavily on new media platforms – Instagram, YouTube and Facebook – to share its content.

These may not be cutting-edge newsrooms, but they reveal the successes of journalists unwilling to stop their newswork despite intimidation. The potential and possibilities of maintaining a journalistic presence are clear. The commitment it displays gives me hope for the future. Finding new alternatives for engagement, new practices of outreach and new modes of storytelling are what sustains that hope.

Exiled media: Lessons learned

Running a media platform is no easy task. Running an exiled media platform with a team of journalists inside the country who are constantly harassed by authorities is a gargantuan task. But it is one that can be enriched by considering the Azerbaijan experience. Relying on their offline popularity, these media platforms have been able to shift their focus to an online presence and especially a presence on social networks. Facebook and Instagram have become part of a new news package, while WhatsApp and Telegram have turned into a reliable communication channel with the audience, one that encourages the public to send stories and reach out for help. Their names have become closely affiliated with justice and are often used as a weapon against corrupt government officials or other power holders in Azerbaijan.

Surely, none of these online news platforms or journalists are immune from technical attacks or physical attacks. In May 2019, Meydan TV, blocked inside the country since 2017, was DDoSed after publishing an investigative story about the State Oil Company (Index on Censorship, 2019). The platform’s team remained largely under travel bans until 2019, when finally all of them were removed. In June 2020, a VoA correspondent was harassed by the police and given a warning. In May 2020, the country’s remaining opposition news agency Turan, was DDoSed and rendered inaccessible for 3 days.

There are a number of other online initiatives working from exile. Listing them all here would be a difficult task, but it is safe to say that despite the challenges – securing sustainable funding, physical and digital threats, other forms of persecution – there is certainly a diversity of platforms, opinions and voices, offering different styles of news for a diverse audience. Across simplified language news, animated explainers, humour and visual content, journalism about Azerbaijan continues to exist. It will stay this way, so long as there are dedicated journalists whose passion it is to tell stories from home and keep informing the masses.