Spied On, Arrested, and Deported

This month marks the beginning of a series in both text as well as podcasts, focusing on journalists of all kinds who have been stopped from doing their work.  Whether they’ve been spied on, detained, deported or even murdered, the point of this series will be to shed more light on reporters and critical voices who have been targeted because of the work that they do.

The first case will come this week with the arrest of two Azeri video journalists in jail since July 8th when they were assaulted and arrested.  Both Emin Milli and Adnan Hadji-zadeh are citizen journalists and were extremely active in organizing youth online before being taken in to custody.  They’ve been charged with hooliganism, though it is not clear why or what that means in Azerbaijan. Their trial, which has generated international concern and criticism, has been repeatedly delayed.

Later this week my guest on the podcast will be Ali S. Novruzov, Azeri blogger and concerned citizen who has been following this issue since the beginning. Together we will talk about how this all happened, the situation for citizen journalists and journalists in general in Azerbaijan, and much more.