MP: Law on Press Council must be adopted in Azerbaijan

The Law on Press Council must be adopted in Azerbaijan, MP Bakhtiyar Sadigov, a member of the Press Council Board, said on Friday.

"Once such law is adopted, the activity of the Press Council will be optimized, and it will be able to fight journalists-racketeers more efficiently," Sadigov said.

According to him, laws on Press Council have been put in effect internationally for a long time, and Azerbaijan may reckon on the world experience to draft this document.

"On the basis of numerous, insistent requests, the Press Council started fighting newspapers specialized in racketeering and adopted its certain documents in that connection.

Some of them were approved at a congress of the Council and the rest documents  through voting at a meeting of the Press Council Board. This work now continues efficiently. The Press Council has established a "black list" to put newspapers specialized in racketeering on it.

However, practice illustrates that some of the newspapers put on the black list do not stop racketeering. This causes disgust of the society and damages the prestige of the Press Council," Sadigov said.

If the law on the Press Council is adopted, the Council will be of possession of more efficient instruments.

"We do not want the Press Council to be authorized to halt operation of newspapers. It would be enough for the Council to be authorized to appeal to corresponding bodies against newspapers-racketeers. That would be more efficient. Cessation of operation of a newspaper by court decision would be more expedient.

Passage of the law on the Press Council and regulation of the Council’s activity would increase the influence of Council’s opinion and the results of its activity and, on the whole, will make fight against racketeer journalism more efficient. So I want the law on the Press Council to be adopted," he said.


/Trend/