Azerbaijan creates database of prosecuted journalists

Today, the office of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) hosted the presentation of the Electronic database comprising the journalists, who were subjected to pressure in Azerbaijan since 1990. It is placed in the website of the IRFS. The project was implemented at financial support of the Soros Foundation.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Emin Guseinov, head of the IRFS, said at the presentation that the database comprises data on 103 journalists. Thus, the website comprises polling results of journalists in the Azerbaijan and English languages, and also video records of interviews with them.

According to Mr Guseinov, the above list could have included some 20-30 persons more. However, some journalists refused to be included into the database. Some of them are currently working in pro-governmental mass media and would not like their data to appear in the website. Besides, some journalists have lately left Azerbaijan and live in other countries.

The IRFS leader has also noted that they had initially wanted to make a hardcopy of the list. However, they gave up the idea, since it is harder to make amendments in the hardcopy.

As to the facts of pressure on journalists, in 95 percent of cases it was exerted by law enforcement bodies, 3 percent - by unknown persons and 2 percent - by other bodies.