On 26 September, the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) decided on the case of Majidli and Others v. Azerbaijan, reported Turan.

The ECHR found violations of their rights under Article 5 (right to liberty and security of person), Art. 6 (right to a fair hearing), Art. 10 (freedom of expression), Art. 11 (freedom of peaceful assembly) from the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECHR decided that the government of Azerbaijan needs to pay: Muhammad Majidli, Arif Hajili, Tural Abbasly, Fuad Gahramanli, Babu Hasanov, Zulfugar Eyvazov, Elshan Hasanov, Sahib Karimov, Arif Alyshli, Ulvi Guliyev a gross indemnity of 128.000 Euro, including court costs.

Statements were made by 11 opposition politicians who were administratively arrested for participating in protests in 2010-2011. In addition, for their participation in the rally on April 2, 2011, they were convicted for terms of 1 to 3 years. All the applicants in the process were recognized as political prisoners by local human rights defenders. 

Two weeks earlier, on 10 September the cassation appeal against the decision to block the sites of the newspaper “Azadliq”, “Azadlıq Radio”, “Azərbaycan saatı” (Azerbaijan Hour) program, “Turan” and “Meydan” TV were considered at the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan. The Supreme Court decided that the block should be cancelled. The decision was then sent to the Baku Court of Appeal for review, as reported by apa.az. In May 2017, Sabail District Court made a decision on blocking these media sources based on the claim of Ministry of Transport, Communications, and High Technologies. After the Baku Court of Appeal did not satisfied the complaint against that decision, the case was forwarded to the Supreme Court.

Since all social media channels are accessible in Azerbaijan, the media restrictions imposed by the government are considered as counter-productive and unnecessary according to expert opinions. “A welcome development, but might only mean the government realized blocking the sites was not worth the international grief when citizens could access their content effortlessly via Facebook and YouTube,” wrote Mike Runey, Head of Portsmouth Christian Academy, on his Twitter account in regard to the decision of the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan.

The area of political rights in Azerbaijan remains a big challenge for the country’s government, as it has faced criticism from European organizations. “The human rights situation remains [a] concern. Violations of the fundamental freedoms of association, expression and assembly and the authorities’ persecution of critics or perceived critics continue. The shrinking space for civil society was further reduced by restrictive legislation, including provisions for foreign funding; prominent media websites were closed down with no court ruling; there were cases of journalists imprisoned or detained under administrative order. The access to justice was seriously hampered due to new rules prohibiting practicing lawyers, who are not members of the Bar Association, from appearing in court. Some lawyers active in the cases of Human Rights (HR) defenders were disbarred by the Bar Association. In line with its international commitments, Azerbaijan needs to improve its compliance with ECHR rulings,” read the summary of the EU 2018 Report on human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan.

On 10 August 2018, following the blocking of the aforementioned media sources in Azerbaijan, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir called on the authorities to reform the laws and regulations affecting media and to encourage pluralistic debate on all issues of public importance, both off– and online. “Blocking websites is an extreme measure which may stifle critical voices, particularly when instigated by highly problematic defamation claims. It impedes on the public’s right to access information and negatively impacts media pluralism and free expression,” he said.