Bloggers Jailed in Azerbaijan

Tweet It's been nearly a month since two Azeri bloggers were having dinner in a Baku restaurant with their friends when thugs showed up and started a fight. When the two victims, pro-democracy activists, managed to get away they reported what happened to the police. They are now in jail. One of them, Adnan, was able to get this note out.



State-controlled media, increasingly almost all of the media in Azerbaijan, have made these two men, Adnan and Emin, out to be criminals.

As I was leaving Azerbaijan late last year, the government was beginning to crack down on hard on the media. It kicked Radio Liberty and BBC off the broadcast airwaves. In February, it pulled the plug on an independent online news agency. The news agency is back -- under new pro-government ownership.

The Azeri government continues to jail journalists and uses the state-controlled media to try to destroy their reputations.

Now, the government fears bloggers.