Azerbaijan
this data has not been made public since 2002. On February 17, 2014, the NCTR denied license renewal to the regional channel Aygun TV (the city of Zaqatala). The official statement provided by the Council claimed that the company had not submitted the necessary documents for license renewal. However, the director of Aygun TV claims that the previous day he refused an offer to buy the channel and was therefore punished.
to broadband Internet, and the number of Facebook users exceeded 1.25 million people. The National Strategy for Information Society Development of the country predicts that by the year 2020, online media and social networks and other modern media will come to the forefront in the everyday lives of Azerbaijanis and such universal values as Internet freedom and access to information will be fully ensured.
The NCTR has committed itself not to allocating available frequencies for broadcasting, but to regulating of the number of broadcasters in the country. On April 22, 2014, Nushiravan Maharramli, the chairman of the Council, said that Internet TV channels in Azerbaijan would not be issued licenses for cable broadcasting: “they have to make a choice. If they want to broadcast on cable, then they are to establish a cable TV, and then they are to contact us and we will consider the issue and make a decision. Otherwise, the number of television channels will increase dramatically. And today Azerbaijan has a sufficient number of TV channels for a country with such territory.�
The current laws and regulations do not pose a serious threat to Internet freedom. However, the frequent calls, especially on the part of MPs, to toughen these laws and to establish a national regulatory authority for the Internet are of great concern. Moreover, there have been numerous cases of persecution, and administrative or judicial punishment of bloggers and active Internet users with critical positions. As mentioned earlier in this report, in the past two years, six famous bloggers have been arrested on charges of illegal possession of drugs or disorderly conduct, and five of them were sentenced to long prison terms.
Internet and New Media Internet resources and online journalism are rapidly developing in the country. The number of readers of online versions of popular newspapers and magazines is at least 7-10 times their print circulation. In 20132014 dozens of new information websites, Internet TV and Internet radio emerged in Azerbaijan. According to the official data, in mid-2014, more than 70% of the population used the Internet, 50% of them were connected 34
In August 2013, the country saw its first victim of the legislative changes on criminal responsibility for defamation on Internet resources, introduced to the Criminal Code by the Parliament three months earlier. The Court of Astara sentenced city resident Mikayil Talibov to correctional labour for one year and deducting 20% of his salary for alleged libel against AccessBank committed on Facebook. The court of appeal overturned the verdict and sent the case for retrial, but the district court, after revising the case in June 2014, only reduced the sentence to nine months. There is no monopoly in the provision of Internet services, but government organizations dominate the market. There have