Press Freedom Days: Civil Society solidary with the Azerbaijani Journalist Khadija Ismayilova and with the Centre for Journalistic Investigations of Moldova

Press Freedom Days in Moldova, an event celebrated in many countries of the world, started with a protest held in front of the Embassy of Azerbaijan to Chișinău, where a number of NGO-s, media organizations, alongside with organizations from other fields, took part in a flash mob on Tuesday, 3rd of May. Those present requested freedom for the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Izmaylova, sentenced to seven-year imprisonment in an unfair trial. In the same time, they expressed their solidarity with the team of the Centre for Journalistic Investigations of Moldova (CJIM), which was abusively summoned by a representative of the Azerbaijani diplomatic mission to take out from the balcony of the Embassy the poster calling for Khadija’s release.
 
“We thought it was our duty to make this banner, to express our position towards the government of Azerbaijan which violates the rights of journalists, imprisons the journalists who write independently”, Cornelia Cozonac, the director of CJIM, declared.

She also specified that the banner was displayed for just one day, and it was then removed at the request of the building owner. Cornelia Cozonac added that she was surprised by the insistence of the Azerbaijani Embassy’s representative who came to the CJIM on 22nd of April and insistently tried to find out who had made the banner, who had put it up and threatened they would have serious problems, if they do not provide him the requested information. “I really found it abusive, because it does not happen in our country, or he behaved exactly as it happens in Azerbaijan”, Cornelia Cozonac mentioned.

CJIM called upon the inquiry authorities to investigate the incident and informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration about it.

Attending the solidarity action, Lilia Carasciuc, director of Transparency International Moldova, proposed to take the poster out of the window of CJIM building and to display it in turn at the windows of the buildings of other civil society organizations. “Hands off the mass-media!”, was the message of Transparency International, also addressed to the Government of the Republic of Moldova.

Flash mob participants chanted “Freedom to Khadija!”, “Hands off the CJIM!”, “Freedom to the Mass-Media!”.  

The journalist Khadija Ismayilova, author of a number of investigations about the companies controlled by President Ilham Aliyev, was sentenced last year in Baku for an alleged tax evasion. The human rights organizations have labelled the charge as being political.