Azerbaijani NGOs and media worry about legislation novelties

The latest innovations in the legislation of Azerbaijan concerning the work of mass media and NGOs were criticized on February 23 at the roundtable held in the Norwegian House of Human Rights in Baku. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that debates were run by activists of the civil society of Azerbaijan, members of international organizations and foreign human rights defenders.

Jacqueline Carpenter, who represented the Baku-based OSCE Office, noted, concerning the amendments in the legislation about prohibition of photographing and video filming of persons without their permit that this novelty contradicts the international obligations of Azerbaijan. In her opinion, "the new rules will restrict the freedom of journalists to gather and disseminate information."

Rashid Gadjily, Director of the Institute of Media Rights (IMR), Intigam Aliev, head of the Society of Legal Education (SLE), and Emin Guseinov, head of the Institute Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), focused, when speaking to the roundtable on February 23, also on the restrictive character of innovations in the legislation on NGOs and grants.

In particular, the new procedure was criticized, under which if an NGO has not registered its grant at the Ministry of Justice, it will not be able to implement the project. "In practice, it can lead to subjectivity of the Ministry, which may delay registration, or reject it whatsoever, since the legislation fails to clarify these points," said Mr Gadjily, director of the IMR.

Another problem was highlighted by Mr Guseinov as introduction of a new form of financial accounting. By April 1, the NGOs shall present their financial documents for last year in accordance with international accounting standards. However, NGOs have no bookkeepers who know this system of international accounting, while services of such bookkeepers are expensive.

Lenur Kerimov, representing the Polish Helsinki Assembly, offered to conduct monitoring of NGOs with the aim to reveal the problems they face and draft proposals on how to address them. This offer was supported by the audience.

Another representative of this organization - Danura Presivara - noted the need of active struggle against arbitrariness of bureaucrats. In her opinion, it is necessary to go to court, when NGOs are refused registration. In this case the Strasbourg court can adopt a special resolution, obliging Azerbaijan to pass the law solving the problem of registration of NGOs.

The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan refuted the criticism of creating problems in NGO registration and other issues related to their work. As reported by the press service of this Ministry, in 2009, 160 NGOs passed state registration and over 300 printed editions were taken on account. Currently, the total number of registered non-commercial organizations (NCOs) in the country is about 3400, and the number of mass media is over 4100.