On June 8, Justice for Journalists issued a statement in support of jailed media workers worldwide.
The Justice for Journalists Foundation and its Media Risk Map partners monitoring attacks on media workers in the post-Soviet space call on international organisations and governments of all countries to do their utmost to secure the early release of all incarcerated media workers and to end the barbaric violations of their rights. According to the JFJ’s experts, at least 84 media workers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Crimea, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are awaiting trial in detention or under house arrests, or have already been sentenced to long-term imprisonment and are held in prisons and prison camps.
According to JfJ the following journalists and bloggers remain behind bars in Azerbaijan:
- Polad Aslanov, the editor-in-chief of the Xeberman and Press-az news websites
- Elchin Mammadli, editor-in-chief of the Yüksəlişnaminə newspaper (Mammadli is also a human rights lawyer, President of the Social Union of Legal Education of Sumgait Youth (SULESY), an NGO providing free legal assistance)
- Afgan Sadigov, the head of the online publication Azel.Tv
- Aslan Gurbanov, blogger
- Elchin Hasanzade, blogger
- Ibrahim (Salamov) Turksoy, blogger