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A media bill presented to Azerbaijan’s parliament has been criticized by some journalists who warn that it could restrict their ability to work independently.

The About the Media bill was introduced in parliament on December 10. It is scheduled for a third and final hearing in the coming weeks, after which President Ilham Aliyev is likely to sign it into law.

The proposed bill includes measures such as the establishment of a centralized media registry, licensing of online TV and accreditation of journalists. Other provisions focus on reporting on religious extremism or under martial or emergency law.

Critics say the proposal would give the government leverage over determining who works as a journalist, and that regulating online TV — a medium that has gained popularity because of restrictions on more traditional broadcasting — could undermine the free flow of information.

Concerns were also raised that clauses on martial law and religious extremism could further expand the government’s powers to interfere with content.

The bill stems from a decree that the president signed in January “on deepening media reforms.”

Natiq Javadli, a journalist who works for Berlin-based Meydan TV, believes the law would introduce new restrictions on journalists.

“We are not going to be able to independently call government officials and receive response, because we will be asked if we have been registered as journalists, or not,” Javadli said.

Media expert Alasgar Mammadli told VOA the bill does not appear to have taken into account public opinion or international input.

“This bill envisages the regulation of all journalists in a singular manner, particularly when it comes to their accreditation and the licensing of internet TV. These seriously contravene international legal norms,” Mammadli said.

Media watchdogs and analysts in Azerbaijan say the proposed bill has not been approved by the Venice Commission — the Council of Europe’s independent advisory body that looks at constitutional matters — or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s media body, both of which Baku is supposed to collaborate with.

Analysts also say the draft bill may contravene protections for freedom of expression in the Azerbaijan Constitution.

Parliamentarian Fazil Mustafa rejected the idea that the draft bill would amount to censorship. He said that many provisions, including for the centralized registry and journalist licensing, are not obligatory.

“(The) media registry is voluntary. Those who register are considered journalists, as are those who do not. Simply, those who register may find it beneficial,” Mustafa told VOA, adding that it could help in “utilizing certain privileges.”

Mustafa said the licensing of online television was necessary “because journalists, any media outlets, cannot function outside the legal framework.”

Baku’s Media Development Agency, which played a significant role in the preparation of the bill, has said that it corresponds with international norms.

Mushfig Alasgarli, head of the Journalists Trade Union of Azerbaijan, was also more optimistic. He said he believes the bill will clarify some of the issues around regulation of online media and said that it recognizes “the rights of freelance journalists.”

“They exist de-facto and they work. Until now, their status has not been recognized in the legal sphere,” he said.

Establishing a media registry could remedy the haphazard ways in which media outlets have been registered by the Justice Ministry until now, Alasgarli added.

Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova disagreed, saying it will be nearly impossible for freelancers to work if they are not considered journalists under the law.

“There is a provision that requires a special registry for journalism and if you are not in registry, then you are not a journalist,” Ismayilova said.

In her view, the law will, in effect, place journalism under direct state control.

She also raised concerns about the draft bill’s language regarding reporting on law enforcement operations against extremism or terrorism.

The award-winning journalist has previously been imprisoned in what rights groups say was retaliation for her coverage of corruption. Ismayilova, who worked for the Azeri service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested in 2014 and spent over 530 days in prison on charges of libel, tax evasion and illegal business activities.

RFE/RL is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which also oversees VOA.

Ismayilova said that rather than helping independent journalists, the new law seeks to convert reporters into government spokespersons, because authorities will be able to define who is or is not a journalist.

Azerbaijan has a poor media freedom record, ranking 167 out of 180 countries where 1 is freest, according to Reporters Without Borders. The watchdog said that journalists “are jailed on absurd grounds if they do not first yield to harassment, blackmail or bribes,” and that access to several news websites is blocked.

As of December 1, two journalists were in prison on what the press freedom organization the Committee to Protect Journalists says are charges in retaliation for their work. 

This story originated in VOA’s Azeri Service. Asgar Asgarov contributed to this report.
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Dutch prosecutors have demanded life sentences for four suspects on trial for the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people. 

The prosecution closed three days of final arguments Wednesday by saying Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Pulatov, along with Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, collaborated to get a Buk missile system from Russia to support separatists in Ukraine. 

An international investigation in 2018 concluded a missile launcher used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 came from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.

Prosecutors said the missile was brought to its launch site “by orders of and under guidance of the suspects.” 

Most of those on board the plane were Dutch nationals, and the Netherlands holds Russia responsible for the downing of the aircraft.Russia has denied any involvement. 

All of the suspects are being tried in absentia. Only Pulatov has legal representation at the proceedings, and his lawyers are expected to give their closing arguments in March. 

A verdict in the trial is not expected until late next year. 
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Poland and Lithuania have backed Ukraine in urging Western powers to immediately impose sanctions on Russia over its military buildup along the Ukrainian border.

As fears mount of a Russian invasion, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday “called upon the international community to step up sanctions on the Russian Federation over its ongoing aggression against Ukraine.”

In a statement issued after the leaders met in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, they “once again urged the Kremlin to de-escalate the situation by withdrawing its troops from the Ukrainian borders.”

Despite U.S. President Joe Biden warning Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month that Russia would pay a “terrible price” in the event it invades Ukraine, the forward-deployment of hundreds of tanks, howitzers, self-propelled artillery and tens of thousands of troops has not been reversed, say Western security sources.

U.S. and Western officials fear Putin is contemplating a replay of 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The White House believes it has only a “four-week window” to stave off a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, dismissed reports Monday of the West having a “four-week window” to stop an invasion. “There was nothing to defend [Ukraine] from,” he said.

But Russian officials have said relations with NATO were reaching a “moment of truth” and have called on the West to respond to their demands that the Western alliance bar former Soviet states such as Ukraine from joining the bloc.

Zelenskiy’s repeated calls for “powerful preventative actions, powerful serious sanctions to exclude any thought about escalation” so far have been ignored by the U.S. and NATO’s Western European members. But they have continued their drumbeat of warnings of severe economic penalties if Russia invades Ukraine.

Speaking Tuesday to reporters on a conference call, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried, who for the past week has been holding talks in Moscow, Kyiv and Brussels, said: “The United States has been working very closely with our European counterparts on specific packages of severe consequences for Russia. Should it move forward with military escalation in Ukraine, together with our allies, we have been clear that we would respond with strong economic measures that we have not considered in the past and that would inflict significant costs on the Russian economy and financial system.”

Asked if Western powers are ready to act if there is further Russian aggression against Ukraine today, tomorrow or next week, Donfried said: “There’s clarity about what we will do.”

But current and former diplomats say while there’s broad agreement among Western powers about sanctioning Russia in the event of an incursion, there’s as yet no final accord on the details. Some European governments have less appetite than others, they say. “There is still discussion,” said a British diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It is not all signed and sealed.”

Russia is the European Union’s fifth largest trading partner, and European assets in Russia are valued at about $350 billion.  

Much speculation on what Western powers might do has focused on whether they would cut Russia off from the SWIFT global money-transfer system, which is used by more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions to make and receive cross-border payments. Some commentators have suggested this would be a nuclear option, but others disagree, saying Russia would adapt and could use email, telex and phone calls to arrange money transfers.

“One of the things that I imagine is being considered is more restrictions on the Russian financial infrastructure, which might include SWIFT,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute, Britain’s leading defense think tank.

“I’m not convinced it is necessarily the nuclear option,” he told VOA. “You can perfectly well do cross-border payments without using the system. I’m not saying that there wouldn’t be an impact. There would be, because it would throw a ton of grit into Russia’s ability to trade internationally. But I’m not convinced it is the sort of threat that’s going to make Vladimir Putin quake in his boots.”

When disconnecting Russia from SWIFT was first broached in 2014, the impact would have been greater, Keatinge explained. But since then, Russia has clearly given much thought to what workarounds it would use. And, like China, it has been developing its own financial transfer system, known as SPFS, which 400 institutions—mostly banks—are already using.

“The Russian Central Bank has for a long time been developing a playbook,” Keatinge added. Some other analysts fear unplugging Russia from SWIFT would encourage Russia and China to develop a more ubiquitous global payment system of their own.

Keatinge and others suspect potential sanctions would focus on blacklisting more Russian banks and financial institutions and making it harder for Russia to raise capital overseas. But Western countries have different pain thresholds and “the Europeans have significantly more [economically] at stake,” says Adam Smith, a former senior sanctions adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department who later served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

He cites the risk the Kremlin would retaliate by cutting off natural gas exports to Europe, which sources 35% of its gas supplies from Russia.

“Going after Russia, like going after China, is not the same as going after Iran,” he told VOA. “Collateral consequences would be meaningful. The question is: What degree of self-harm is the West willing to tolerate in order to give Putin a bloody nose?”
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The United States believes bilateral talks with Russia over its massive troop buildup along the Ukrainian border could start in January, the State Department’s top diplomat for Europe said Tuesday, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. and its allies for tensions in the region.

Karen Donfried, assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters that the U.S. and Russia would agree on a specific date to begin talks on Moscow’s demands that NATO give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

But she warned, “We have made clear that any dialogue must be based on reciprocity, address our concerns about Russia’s actions, and take place in full coordination with our European allies and partners.”

“Let me be clear, there will be no talks on European security without Europe,” Donfried said.

Russia has deployed 100,000 troops along its border with eastern Ukraine, according to Western estimates, after unilaterally annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The U.S. has expressed concern that Russia could invade Ukraine early next year but does not believe Putin has decided whether to launch an attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin two weeks ago during a virtual summit that the U.S. and its allies would impose devastating economic sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

Biden has ruled out a ground deployment of U.S. troops in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, but Washington has been sending small arms and ammunition to the Kyiv government, along with Javelin missiles the U.S. says Ukraine should use only for defensive purposes.

Putin, speaking to a meeting of Russia’s top military leaders, blamed the West for “tensions that are building up in Europe.”

As part of the upcoming bilateral talks with the U.S., Putin is demanding that NATO, the post-World War II Western military alliance, deny possible membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite countries, while curbing its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.

Putin said the Kremlin wants “long-term, legally binding guarantees” from the West, as opposed to “verbal assurances, words and promises” that it says it can’t trust.

The Russian leader contended that if the U.S. and NATO place missile systems in Ukraine, it will take only minutes for them to reach Moscow.

“For us, it is the most serious challenge—a challenge to our security,” he said,

“What is happening now, tensions that are building up in Europe, is [the U.S. and NATO’s] fault every step of the way,” the Russian leader said, ignoring Moscow’s takeover of Crimea.

“Russia has been forced to respond at every step,” Putin contended. “The situation kept worsening and worsening, deteriorating and deteriorating. And here we are today, in a situation when we’re forced to resolve it somehow.”

Putin said Moscow hopes for “constructive, meaningful talks with a visible end result—and within a certain time frame—that would ensure equal security for all.”

“Armed conflicts, bloodshed is not our choice, and we don’t want such developments,” Putin said. “We want to resolve issues by political and diplomatic means.”

Some material in this report came from Reuters and the Associated Press.
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The U.N. human rights office is calling on Belarus and Poland to end what it calls appalling treatment of refugees and migrants stranded along their common border and to live up to their obligations under international human rights and refugee laws.

A U.N. human rights team visited the region between November 29 and December 3 to get a firsthand view of the situation. While Polish officials met with the team, Belarusian authorities did not.

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssell says team members were not granted access to the restricted border area. However, she says they interviewed government officials, civil society representatives and dozens of refugees and migrants who had arrived in Poland through Belarus.

Those interviewed, she says, described the dire conditions on both sides of the border.

“The majority said that, while in Belarus, they had been beaten or threatened by security forces and also alleged that the Belarusian security forces forced them to cross the border…Several interviewees said Belarusian security forces had demanded extortionate sums for food and water…They spoke about their fear, their fear about being alone in the forest, even fear of dying because of the difficult conditions there. One of the migrants said it is absolute hell for everyone,” Throssell said.

The International Organization for Migration says 21 migrants have died along the Belarus-EU border, many from hypothermia because of freezing temperatures.

The European Commission accuses Belarus of creating a crisis by luring migrants from the Middle East, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries to the capital, Minsk, with the false promise of gaining easy entry to the European Union.

Throssell says neither Belarus nor Poland wants the refugees and migrants and push them across borders. She says Poland also systematically detains those whom it has not returned to Belarus.

“Many of those interviewed said they had not been given proper physical and mental health care in detention, and had limited contact with the outside world, including with independent lawyers, human rights monitors and civil society organizations,” Throssell said. “We remind Poland that detention should be an exceptional measure of last resort, and only be used for a limited period of time, if at all.”

The U.N. human rights office is urging authorities of both countries to give human rights and humanitarian actors, as well as journalists, lawyers, and civil society representatives, access to the border areas. It is calling on them and on the EU to respect and protect the human rights of migrants in line with international law.
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In Turkey, Uyghur refugees who fled Chinese detention centers and other alleged rights abuses say they fear the Turkish government is under increased pressure to prosecute or deport activists. But as VOA’s Heather Murdock finds at one school in Istanbul, some Uyghur children say their parents sent them here to find safety, when there was no one to care for them at home.

Camera: Umut Colak
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As China’s crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong intensifies under Beijing’s so-called “National Security Law,” tens of thousands of citizens are fleeing the territory. In the first six months of the year, over 65,000 Hong Kong citizens applied to move to Britain, which controlled the territory until 1997, under a special new visa scheme. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell met one Hong Kong family who is making a new life in Britain.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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A Russian businessman has been extradited from Switzerland to the United States to face charges of insider trading, the Swiss justice ministry said. 

Vladislav Klyushin, who reportedly owns a media and cybersecurity business called M13 that is linked to the Kremlin, is accused of “involvement in a global scheme to trade on non-public information stolen from U.S. computer networks … between at least in or about January 2018 and September 2020,” according to a press release from the U.S. Justice Department. 

According to the company’s website, its products were used by “the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Russian Federation, federal ministries and departments, regional state executive bodies, commercial companies and public organizations.” 

One of the stocks Klyushin traded using insider information was Tesla, the Justice Department said. 

Russia said the move was another example of Washington going after Russians on the world stage. 

“We are forced to state that we are dealing with another episode in Washington’s ongoing hunt for Russian citizens in third countries,” said Vladimir Khokhlov, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Switzerland, TASS reported. 

Four other Russians are charged in the alleged scheme. 

“The integrity of our nation’s capital markets and of its computer networks are priorities for my office,” acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Mendell said. “Today’s charges show that we, the FBI, and our other law enforcement partners will relentlessly pursue those who hack, steal and attempt to profit from inside information, wherever they may hide.” 

Some information in this report came from Reuters. 
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Russia expelled two German diplomats on Monday in response to Germany’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week. 

The dispute between the two nations started when a German court said last week that Russia had ordered the assassination of a former Chechen militant Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. 

A German court convicted Russian Vadim Krasikov of murder and sentenced him to life in prison, calling the slaying a “grave breach of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

After the conviction, Russia called the notion of Russian involvement “absurd.” 

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador to announce the expulsions. 

Russian officials said the move was reciprocal, the German Foreign Ministry said. 

“This move comes as no surprise, but it is completely unwarranted from the federal government’s perspective,” it said in a statement. “Today’s decision by Russia’s foreign ministry puts renewed strain on the relationship.” 

“It was noted that the Russian side categorically rejects unfounded and detached-from-reality accusations that Russian public structures are accessory to this crime,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

Some information in this report comes from Reuters and The Associated Press. 

 
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The White House said Monday the United States is ready to start diplomatic talks with Russia through multiple channels, but it made clear that Moscow must address Western concerns about its military buildup along the Ukrainian border.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with his counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the White House saying the U.S. was willing to talk directly with the Kremlin, as well as through the NATO-Russia Council and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The White House said Sullivan told Ushakov that “any dialogue must be based on reciprocity and address our concerns about Russia’s actions.”

In a virtual summit two weeks ago, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin that the U.S. would impose tough economic sanctions against Russia if it invaded Ukraine. Moscow has amassed tens of thousands of troops along Ukraine’s eastern border, although Washington has indicated that it does not believe Putin has decided to launch an attack on Ukraine.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow about the Sullivan-Ushakov call.

Last week, Moscow listed security proposals it wanted to negotiate, including a pledge that NATO would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Biden has ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops if Russia invades Ukraine, but the U.S. has been shipping arms to Kyiv.

The Pentagon said that the security package includes small arms and ammunition and Javelin missiles, which the U.S. says can be used anywhere in Ukraine but only for self-defense purposes.
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