Author: aiw_admin

former political prisoner receives death threat over social media

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Rufat Safarov, who heads the Defense Line, an Azerbaijani non-governmental organization said he received death threats from Nasir Asgarov on Facebook, Meydan TV reports.

According to Meydan TV, Savarov received a message from Asgarov on Facebook asking him for his phone number and demanding to meet. When Safarov declined the request, Asgarov sent death threats to Safarov allegedly on the grounds that Safarov disrespected Asgarov’s girl friend.  

Safarov informed the police immediately. According to Meydan TV, the Ministry of the Interior is investigating the case.

Nasig Asgarov was previously convicted for premeditated murder according to the Defense Line.  

Azerbaijan takes stock of Turkey’s social media law

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In recent years, as social media platforms gained popularity among Azerbaijani users to express concern and criticize the ruling authorities, the government officials were quick to react. At several meetings of the national parliament, members voiced opinions about the need to control social media platforms.

In May the discussions were back on the table.

According to Azadliq Radio, Azerbaijan Service for Radio Liberty, several members of the parliament and experts expressed discomfort over insult and slander often used on social media platforms.

Some of them were quick to offer amendments to existing national legislation, introducing punishments for such cases.

Fazil Mustafa, a member of the Human Rights Committee at the National Parliament said, while it is impossible to control social media platforms, using the Turkey example it is important that popular platforms and companies have legal representatives in Azerbaijan. This won’t be government control over social media platforms but rather a constructive partnership between the government and the companies’ representatives in the country.

This is not uncommon in countries with low democracy scores said media law expert Alasgar Mammadli. In these countries, the leadership is trying to introduce strict control measures under the pretext of protecting user rights and interests. “It is possible that like in Turkey where companies were forced to open offices, Azerbaijan would do the same. They may be asked to remove some personal information. Otherwise, they would be limited in their activities in the country or face fines,” said Mammadli in an interview with Azadliq Radio.

Alternatively, the authorities may consider introducing bans on some of the platforms but this won’t be effective according to Mammadli. “Experience shows that when Turkey blocked access to platforms like YouTube and Twitter, their user base only grew. Which means this may not be an effective method.”

Although, self-censorship is pervasive among ordinary social media users, who often face offline criminal charges for their online activism criticism of government policies and decisions on social media platforms is common and in some cases proven effective in changing the course of government decision-making.

Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, Azerbaijan country report 2019

In October 2018, a lawmaker proposed requiring internet users to register their social media accounts by linking them to their government-issued identity documents.

In February 2019, members of the parliament began discussing plans for new legislation. Musa Guliyev proposed creating a national social network and restricting access to all other platforms in order to “prevent people from slandering Azerbaijan.” Another member, Ziyafat Asgarov, suggested amending the Law on Mass Media to prevent social media users from insulting “the lawful actions, the personality, the honor or the dignity” of others. That same month, Aliyev signed a decree aimed at establishing a Social Research Center, which will monitor public opinion online, primarily through polling.

These statements came in the aftermath of a series of heated public discussions online. Among them was a campaign to drop newly leveled charges against imprisoned blogger Mehman Huseynov that would have extended his two-year sentence by an additional seven years. Huseynov went on hunger strike shortly after the new charges were announced, prompting an outpouring of support on social media under the hashtag #FreeMehman. In January 2019, thousands of people rallied in Baku to protest the government’s persecution of Huseynov. The rally, organized online, was among the country’s largest protests in recent years. The new charges were eventually dropped, and Huseynov was released in March 2019, after serving his two-year sentence.

Freedom House, Freedom on the Net, Azerbaijan country report, 2020

Following campaigns and rallies organized online in October 2019 and February 2020, the government indicated that it is interested in regulating platforms, with one lawmaker describing social media as an instrument for “moral terrorism.”In March 2020, one member of parliament proposed the creation of a dedicated body to monitor social media platforms and hold users who spread rumors accountable.

Azerbaijan already has laws in place criminalizing online speech. In 2013, general provisions on defamation and insult were expanded to include criminal liability for online content. Article 147.1 of the criminal code criminalizes the “dissemination, in … a publicly displayed internet information resource, of knowingly false information discrediting the honor and dignity of a person or damaging his or her reputation.” Article 148 of the criminal code similarly criminalizes “deliberate humiliation of the honor and dignity of a person, expressed in an obscene manner … through a publicly displayed internet information resource.” Also in 2016, changes to Article 323 of the criminal code introduced a maximum prison sentence of two years for defaming the president in mass media, which include social media. Defaming the president through fake “usernames, profiles, or accounts” may result in a three-year prison sentence. Falsely accusing the president of “having committed a serious or especially serious crime” online may result in a five-year prison sentence. In 2017, the fines associated with these offenses were increased.

Taking into account Azerbaijan’s human rights track record, the likelihood of new bills (especially those similar to Turkey) is not far-fetched.

Amnesty International statement calls to stop gender-based reprisals in Azerbaijan

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On May 12, Amnesty International released a statement calling to stop gender-based reprisals in Azerbaijan. 

“Women human rights defenders have faced threats, coercion, violations of their right to privacy and smear campaigns that are gender-specific and target them as women. This type of gender-based violence and discrimination aims to silence their critical voices and discredit their work. It also seeks to punish them for speaking out as women,” reads the statement. 

The statement documents the recent attacks and harassment women activists have faced for their work, outspokenness, or for simply being family members of government critics. 

AIW reported on these attacks previously:

February 26, 2021 – Activist’s personal messages leaked after hacking [update March 9];

March 9, 2021 – Targeted harassment via telegram channels and hacked Facebook accounts [updated March 15];

March 16, 2021 – Coordinated digital attacks against Feminist movement members and LGBT rights activists; 

March 25, 2021 – Exiled blogger continues to receive threats [updated March 31];

March 28, 2021 – Facebook page, advertising telegram channel, targeting a woman activist [update March 30];

April 14, 2021 – Activists trolled for exposing child abuse in Azerbaijan; 

The report concludes that:

Azerbaijan has an obligation under international human rights law to take all appropriate measures to prevent gender-based violence and other human rights violations against women, including violations of their right to privacy. The Azerbaijani authorities must conduct a prompt, impartial and effective investigation into each and every reported incident of such violence, as well as of instances of reported discrimination or harassment of women, in order to identify and bring to justice in fair proceedings anyone reasonably suspected of being culpable or complicit in such acts, whether they are private individuals or members of security services or other state officials. Women who have suffered these violations should be provided with effective remedies and reparations including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition. Azerbaijan must ensure that every person’s rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are respected and that women are able to fully enjoy these rights, including in the form of women’s marches.

man beaten over social media post [update April 30]

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[Update] The spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior Ehsan Zahidov said following the investigation, all men identified in the video were arrested and questioned. The men were family members of the soldier mentioned in the original tweet. 

In Azerbaijan, a man was beaten over a social media post that was not even his.

On April 28, a group of men beat up social media humorist Fuad Rasulzade. In the video widely distributed across social media platforms, the men are seen twisting his arms, hitting him, and accusing him of disrespecting a soldier, who was killed during the second Karabakh war in a social media post.

Eventually, Rasulzade was let go. After a medical examination, he was discharged without major injuries.

The Ministry of the Interior said it was informed of the incident and will investigate the men who beat up Rasulzade.

Turns out, the post over which Rasulzade was attacked was not even his and was shared first by another friend. After telling Rasulzade that he has been receiving threats, Rasulade wrote on Facebook that the idea belonged to him. The original post was shared a month ago, on March 27. 

Beating and administrative detention for a TikTok video

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A resident of Gushchu village of Shamakhi administrative district in Azerbaijan was taken to the police, beaten, and handed ten-day administrative detention after posting a TikTok video, according to Meydan TV. 

In an interview with Meydan TV, Akif Niftaliyev said he mentioned the local police officers, coming in for a raid and collecting bribes. “I got a phone call after posting the video on TikTok and a man on the phone told me he was looking for a mason. When the man arrived he was accompanied by two other men. I got into the car and realized they were taking me to the police station. Once at the station, police beat me.” Niftaliyev was given ten-day administrative detention the following day on the grounds of resisting police. The video was posted in August, since then, Niftaliyev’s attempts to find justice and hold officers to account proved futile.

Previously, AIW documented the story of Elshan Teymuro who too was arrested following a TikTok video, and sentenced to two months in administrative detention on drug possession charges and disobeying police.

Azerbaijan keeps blocking access to key independent news platforms – OONI April report

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According to latest measurements carried out by OONI, access to a number of key news sites remains blocked in Azerbaijan.  In its latest report that covers the period from January through April, OONI concludes, there is “a strong signal that specific censorship techniques are adopted to block access to these specific media websites.” One noteworthy development is that the video streaming platform Vimeo, previously showing signs of blocking, appears to be accessible according to the most recent measurement report. 

OONI measurements indicate that, “several circumvention tool websites continued to present signs of blocking in Azerbaijan during the testing period.”

One particular circumvention platform NordVPN, “presented HTTP failures every time it was tested — providing a stronger signal of potential blocking. Similarly, other circumvention tool websites (such as protonvpn.com, psiphon.ca, and strongvpn.com) presented signs of blocking in recent measurements.”

Communication apps blocked during the 46days of war between Azerbaijan and Armenia indicated no anomalies. “WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Psiphon seemed to work in Azerbaijan during the testing period,” indicates the report.

Among several tested tools, Tor, was the only one which presented a significantly larger volume of anomalies (in comparison to the other tests). “In Tor anomalous measurements, we see that on some networks, attempted connections to Tor directory authorities failed. However, we also see that many connections to both Tor directory authorities and Tor bridges were successful (on many networks), indicating that it may have been possible to use Tor in Azerbaijan.”

In its overall conclusions, OONI indicates “the ongoing blocking of media websites and circumvention tool websites in Azerbaijan.”

For those interested to assist in conduct further testing in Azerbaijan, you may follow the steps indicated below: 

1. Open the following OONI Run link with your OONI Probe mobile app:

https://run.ooni.io/nettest?tn=web_connectivity&ta=%7B%22urls%22%3A%5B%22https%3A%2 F%2Fwww.azerbaycansaati.tv%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.az24saat.org%2F%22%2C% 22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abzas.net%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azadliq.info%2F%22 %2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azadliq.org%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gununsesi.inf o%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gununsesi.org%2F%22%2C%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ka nal13.tv%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.meydan.tv%2Faz%2F%22%2C%22https%3A%2F% 2Fwww.occrp.org%2F%22%5D%7D&mv=1.2.0

2. Tap “Run” (to test the media websites with OONI Probe).

To run all OONI Probe tests automatically on a daily basis, you have the following options:

1. Install the OONI Probe Desktop App (for Windows and macOS).

a. Enable the Run tests automatically option in the app settings (see the user guide for step-by-step instructions).

2. Install the OONI Probe Command Line Interface (for power users on Debian/Linux and macOS). It will run automatically upon installation.

*Azərbaycan dilində

blogger handed seven year jail sentence [Updated May 5]

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[Update] According to OC Media, Gurbanov was relocated to a prison, which the lawyer says, is in breach of the law. Speaking to OC Media, lawyer Fariz Namazli said, the relocation was illegal as the defendant is awaiting the result of an appeal case. “This [the decision to relocate Gurbanov] was explained to me by the fact that the detention centre was overcrowded and there were a large number of detainees,” Namazli told OC Media. Meanwhile, Gurbanov’s brother said his brother was placed in solitary confinement over an alleged fight. Gurbanov’s lawyer Namazli could not confirm but said he has filed an appeal for further investigation. 

On April 15, blogger, Aslan Gurbanov was sentenced to seven years on charges of calls to overthrow the government and incitement of national, religious, and social hatred, according to Azadliq Radio, Azerbaijan Service for Radio Free Liberty. Gurbanov was arrested on July 14. During his arrest, the blogger suffered from a seizure according to the Justice for Journalists records.

Gurbanov was arrested by the State Security Services and sentenced to four months detention. He was kept at the SSS’s pre-trial detention facility until the trial. 

According to the Azadliq Radio report the blogger was accused of anti-government propaganda on social media platforms and instigated national discrimination – the accusations, Gurbanov refutes. Contrary to the alleged claims that the blogger was disseminating false stories about the discrimination against the Talysh people – an ethnic minority group in Azerbaijan. 

In a statement issued by the Talysh Public Council of Azerbaijan, the group said, Gurbanov promoted Talysh culture and literature, and that accusing the blogger of plotting against the state was unsubstantiated. 

Gurbanov is not the first Talysh activist to be targeted in Azerbaijan. In 2007, the then editor of Talysho Syado (‘Talysh Voice’) newspaper Novruzali Mamedov was arrested initially on charges of ‘resisting law enforcement.’ He was later charged with treason. In his first 15 days in custody, Mamedov was held incommunicado at a [now former] Ministry of National Security detention center, and neither family members nor lawyers were able to visit him. In June 2008, Mamedov was convicted of treason for the ‘distribution of Talysh nationalist ideas and attempts to destroy the foundations of the Azerbaijani state’ and sentenced to 10 years in prison in a closed trial, in absence of his defense attorney, relatives, and the press. The prosecutors alleged that Mamedov received money from Iran to publish the newspaper, but failed to explain or comment on the charges publicly.

Mamedov died in prison in August 2009 as a result of a variety of health problems for which he never received adequate medical care reported Radio Liberty. 

In September 2013, another Talysh journalist, Hilal Mamedov was sentenced to five years in jail on charges of selling drugs, high treason including espionage for Iran, and incitement to national, racial, social, and religious hatred and hostility. Hilal Mamedov took over the editorial of the Talysho Syado after Novruzali Mamedov’s arrest. The journalist was pardoned in 2016 following the Presidential pardon decree. 

activists trolled for exposing child abuse in Azerbaijan

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Vafa Nagi, an activist who recently exposed systemic abuse of young girls in one region of Azerbaijan has herself become a target of harassment as a result. 

Writing about the harassment on her Facebook account, Nagi explained that ever since she shared the story of a 14-year-old  girl, a resident of a small village subject to sexual abuse and the involvement of one police officer in this abuse, Nagi and her family members have faced targeting from the officer and his family members.  

On Facebook Nagi has been targeted with slurs by users related to the police officer.

In the meantime, according to this BBC Azerbaijan service story, the victim was relocated to a shelter in the capital Baku, where she is receiving psychological help. 

In their statement issued earlier, the Ministry of the Interior said they are investigating the case but so far, have not taken any measures against the police officer involved. 

***

Vafa Nagi is an elected member of the local municipality of the region where this abuse has taken place. Recently Nagi was targeted in March of this year after taking part in a women’s march organized to mark International Women’s Day in Baku. 

inauthentic pages target independent news platform – will Facebook take notice [part 2, the case of Mikroskop Media]

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This month, a series of articles published by The Guardian newspaper revealed how leaders across the world, used Facebook loopholes to harass their critics at home. And how despite having information about these violations, the platform lets these cases sit sometimes for months on end if not more, instead choosing to deal with more high profile cases. “The investigation shows how Facebook has allowed major abuses of its platform in poor, small and non-western countries in order to prioritize addressing abuses that attract media attention or affect the US and other wealthy countries. The company acted quickly to address political manipulation affecting countries such as the US, Taiwan, South Korea, and Poland, while moving slowly or not at all on cases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Mexico and much of Latin America.”

The Guardian investigations show that Azerbaijan was on the list of neglected countries. If it wasn’t for Facebook’s former employee Sophie Zhang memo published in September of last year, those inauthentic pages that Facebook removed 14 months later (once the memo was out) likely would have stayed. 

But even though those pages have been reportedly removed, hundreds if not thousands more continue to target independent media in Azerbaijan. AIW covered the story of Meydan TV here and The Guardian uncovered a similar pattern of targeting in the case of Azad Soz. AIW now presents its findings on targeting Mikroskop Media, a Riga-based online news platform that covers Azerbaijan. 

Mikroskop Media shared with AIW the list of Facebook posts where the platform received a high volume of comments. The preliminary investigation indicates that the Facebook page of Mikroskop Media was also targeted by hundreds of inauthentic Facebook pages set up to look like personal accounts flooding the posts with comments supportive of the ruling government and its relevant decisions. 

On March 24, Mikroskop Media shared the following post on its Facebook page. The post looks at the total number of citizens who have received vaccination so far in Azerbaijan as well as the total number of vaccines on March 23. This post received over 1.6k comments. AIW looked at 550 comments and almost all of these comments were posted by owners of pages that posed as users on the platform. 

Another post investigated by AIW was one posted on March 11, indicating the total number of businesses who have applied to the authorities to launch their businesses in Karabakh. The post receives over 400 comments. Having analyzed 200 of them, AIW was again, discovered that all of them were pages. 

On April 5, Mikroskop Media shared a link to a story they published about this investigation that was first originally published by VICE on March 29, exposing how little known Berlin-based television channel was part of a “lobbying strategy to polish Azerbaijan’s image in Germany” thanks to large sums of money paid through bribery of certain politicians. The story shared by Mikroskop Media on its Facebook page received almost 400 comments. AIW analyzed these comments, and once again, with an exception of a few profiles (although these too were suspicious given the lack of any recent activity on their profiles) that almost all of the comments were posted by inauthentic Facebook pages. 

At other times, Mikroskop Media’s Facebook page was targeted by troll accounts. This was especially the case in this example – on November 12, 2020, Mikroskop Media shared an infographic, about the number of times, Azerbaijan’s national constitution was amended. Among the 385 comments that were analyzed, a relatively high number of these comments were posted by Facebook profiles. A closer look at these profiles showed while some of the owners were employees at the state universities and government institutions, some were not authentic accounts at all. The majority of the comments once again were in favor of these changes, expressed pride in the country and the president’s decisions as well as accused the media platform of bias and unfair reporting. 

AIW would be happy to assist Facebook’s threat intelligence team in investigating the “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that AIW has observed and has shared in its reporting so far, but the main question still lingers, will it take notice? 

Facebook looks the other way when it comes to Azerbaijan and others – The Guardian investigations show

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Almost a month after AIW published this story about how some 500 inauthentic Facebook pages targeted Berlin-based independent online news platform Meydan TV, little has changed. While all of the pages that targeted Meydan TV remain active, someone else has taken notice. 

On April 13, The Guardian published this story explaining how Facebook allowed state-backed harassment campaigns, target independent news outlets, and opposition politicians on its platform.  

The story mentions the case of Azad Soz (Free Speech) and how the post shared on March 4 about two men sentenced to eight months received over 1.5k comments. It analyzes the top 300 comments and discovers that 294 out of 300 comments were inauthentic Facebook pages.  

Just like in the case of Meydan TV. 

The Guardian cites Sophie Zang’s work during her time at Facebook, working for the team tasked with “combating fake engagement, which includes likes, shares, and comments from inauthentic accounts.” During her research, Zhang uncovered “thousands of Facebook pages- profiles for businesses, organizations, and public figures – that had been set up to look like user accounts and were being used to inundate the Pages of Azerbaijan’s few independent news outlets and opposition politicians on a strict schedule: the comments were almost exclusively made on weekdays between 9am and 6pm, with an hour break at lunch,” writes The Guardian journalists Julia Carrie Wong and Luke Harding. 

Wong and Harding also mention the platform’s response mechanism. “The company’s vast workforce includes subject matter experts who specialize in understanding the political context in nations around the world, as well as policy staff who liaise with government officials. But Azerbaijan fell into a gap: neither the eastern European nor the Middle Eastern policy teams claimed responsibility for it, and no operations staff – either full-time or contract – spoke Azerbaijani.”

But the story of Facebook and Azerbaijan is not the only one that The Guardian identified loopholes with. “The Guardian has seen extensive internal documentation showing how Facebook handled more than 30 cases across 25 countries of politically manipulative behavior that was proactively detected by company staff. The investigation shows how Facebook has allowed major abuses of its platform in poor, small, and non-western countries in order to prioritize addressing abuses that attract media attention or affect the US and other wealthy countries. The company acted quickly to address political manipulation affecting countries such as the US, Taiwan, South Korea, and Poland, while moving slowly or not at all on cases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Mexico, and much of Latin America.”

Honduras 

The administration in Honduras relied on astroturfing to attack government critics. Sophie Zang discovered how Juan Orlando Hernandez – the authoritarian leader – “received hundreds of thousands of fake likes from more than a thousand inauthentic Facebook pages” that were set up to look like Facebook user accounts. Very similar to what happened in Azerbaijan, in the case of Azad Soz and Myedan TV. And just like it was in the case of Azerbaijan, in the case of Honduras, the platform took nearly a year to respond.

Russia 

During 2016 US election, Russia’s Internet Research Agency set up Facebook pages to “manipulate individuals and influence political debates” pretending to be Americans.

Facebook’s intervention was much faster in the case of Russia targeting US elections, likely the result of “Facebook’s prioirty system for protecting political discourse and elections,” wrote Wong, in another story in The Guardian.   

As a result of this kind of cherry picking, Facebook’s response mechanism worked faster in the Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Ukraine and Poland but not in countries where similar inauthentic behavior was spotted such as Azerbaijan, Mexico, Honduras, Paraguay, Argentina and others. The difference in response rate was as quick as 1 day in the case of Poland and as long as 426 days in the case of Azerbaijan. 

Many others were left uninvestigated at all. Among them, Tunisia, Mongolia, Bolivia, and Albania. 

Back in Azerbaijan, at the time of writing this post, pages that targeted Meydan TV remain, and even if they are removed, nobody knows how long it will take Facebook to respond, next time, such behavior is spotted.