- Target:
- The Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan office@pa.gov.az Mr Zakir Garalov
- Region:
- Georgia
News agencies have reported that on the 18 Apr. Turkish police yanked Azerbaijani journalist, columnist of the Baku-based Zerkalo (Mirror) daily Rauf Mirkadirov off a bus when he was preparing to return to Baku after his press accreditation was suddenly cancelled (http://www.contact.az/docs/2014/Politics/042300076435en.htm, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68289). The next day he was deported to Baku, where he was arrested and charged with espionage for Armenia, the country Azerbaijan is in conflict with. The charge carries potential life sentence (http://www.eurasianet.org/node/68297).
Rauf Mirakadirov, 53, Gerd Bucerius Free Press of Eastern Europe Prize Winner, had worked as Ankara correspondent of Zerkalo for the last three years. He is a well-known participant of Azerbaijan-Armenian “citizen diplomacy”, a process aimed at restoring peaceful relations between civil society activists and journalists of the two countries. All those, who have known him for several years, say the only reasons of his arrest are his contacts with his Armenian colleages as well as his articles critical of Azerbaijani and Turkish athorities. The fact that he was deported just a few days after the Turkish Prime Minister’s visit to Baku made many in Azerbaijan believe that his arrest was the result of an agreement between Ankara and Baku.
His arrest is a heavy blow on Azerbaijani and Armenian peacemakers’ efforts to maintain some form of contacts despite of the smouldering Karabakh conflict.
On 29 April, after a joint statement of.Armenian journalist Laura Bagdasarian and the director of the Azerbaijan Institute for Peace and Democracy Leila Yunus in his defence (http://www.contact.az/docs/2014/Politics/042500076774en.htm), the latter was interrogated for 9 hours. Her flat and office were searched. She is said to have been under home arrest since then.
All those events cannot but confirm our worst apprehensions as to the destiny of our Azeri friends, participants of the peace dialogue.
Please join the appeal of Rauf’s Georgian colleagues – citizen activists and journalists:
Spy mania is not the way of settling the Karabakh conflict!
Stop bullying peacemakers!
Long Live the Dialogue!
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Stop bullying Azeri peacemakers petition to The Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan office@pa.gov.az Mr Zakir Garalov was written by George Gotua and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.