OSCE says media freedom declining in Azerbaijan

In a joint statement read to journalists at the newspaper Azadliq, nations which are members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called on Azerbaijan authorities to do more to protect journalists and to find the killer of opposition magazine editor Elmar Huseinov, who was gunned down in his Baku apartment building last year.

"We think that the recent events demonstrate a worsening of the overall condition of independent mass media in Azerbaijan," said the statement, read by Joan Polaschik, chief of the political and economic section of the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan.

The statement also criticized authorities for restricting radio broadcasts from the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, the British Broadcasting Corp. and other foreign media outlets, and it called on Azerbaijani journalists to observe standards of professionalism and objectivity.

Azerbaijani authorities said last month they would bar local broadcasters from airing programs of BBC, Radio Liberty and Voice of America, but added that these stations would be able to continue broadcasts using their own frequencies.

Ali Hasanov, the head of the social-political section in the Azerbaijani presidential administration, said Wednesday that authorities could provide additional frequencies to foreign broadcasters.

Hasanov also said that the opposition newspaper Azadliq, which faced eviction from its offices in downtown Baku, would be offered new premises.

The 9,000-circulation Azadliq - Azerbaijan's most popular opposition paper - has been threatened with eviction after a government property committee demanded thousands of dollars (euros) in back rent for its editorial offices.

The opposition People's Front of Azerbaijan, which has offices in the same building, also faces eviction.

Pressure on independent media and attacks on opposition journalists is frequent in this oil-rich Caspian Sea state, which has been ruled with a tight grip by President Ilham Aliev since 2003, when he succeeded his long-ruling father in flawed elections. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/