Authorities in Azerbaijan on Friday closed the country's largest independent TV and radio broadcaster, ANS, in a move condemned by Western observers.
The National TV and Radio Council (NTRC) said in a statement that ANS had violated the law by failing to pay taxes and offering its frequencies to Western broadcasters who were not licensed in Azerbaijan.
The company's radio arm has rebroadcast material from the BBC and US stations Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
"The ANS group of companies tried to place itself above the law," Nushirevan Magerramli, the NTRC chairman, told reporters.
"On the one hand it presented itself as the herald of democracy, while on the other it failed to abide by legislation," he said.
Vakhid Mustafeyev, the ANS president, told reporters on Friday that the move was aimed at "depriving citizens of objective information."
"We will take all steps to restore our rights," he said.
An advisor to Mustafeyev told reporters that the company would fight the move in the courts.
ANS is widely considered as the most objective broadcaster in the country, said Maurizio Pavesi, the Baku representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who said in a statement that he was "deeply concerned" by the closure.
Zeinal Mammedli, a media expert with the Council of Europe, described the closure as "a political decision."
"The development of this affair will show whether we are moving towards a liberal and democratic state or a totalitarian State," Mammedli said.
Later on Friday police began to evacuate the headquarters of opposition newspaper Azadliq, following a court decision earlier in the day.
The building, which also houses the Popular Front opposition party and a media freedom pressure group, should have been cleared by yesterday morning.
The newspaper has built up a debt of US$26,000 to the state for its buildings in the center of the capital, according to a complaint deposited by the state property committee.
Ruled by President Ilham Aliyev or his father Heydar Aliyev for most of its post-Soviet history, Azerbaijan has been frequently criticized by the West for its treatment of the media.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS