The website of exile Azerbaijani news site MeydanTV, which was blocked earlier this year. It has been a busy month for the Cyber Security Service at Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Transport, Communication and High Technologies.
Since early August, the service has targeted a number of independent news websites – first requesting them to remove specific content, and later blocking access to these websites altogether. The blocking came after the websites featured articles on the corrupt practices of certain government officials, other stories merely reported on local grievances. Editors and journalists have been summoned to the prosecutor office for questioning over the published articles, though the editors are reluctant to comply. In their public statements, editors say there was no slander nor misinformation in any of the articles published.
Here, the Azerbaijani authorities are relying on legislative amendments passed in 2017 to the “Law on Information, Informatisation and Protection of Information”. According to these amendments, if a website contains prohibited information that poses danger to state or society (“special circumstances”), the relevant authority can block the website without a court order within eight hours of notifying the manager and editor of a website. The lack of necessity for a court order (although in regular circumstances it must be obtained) allowed the authorities to block some of the most prominent news outlets in Azerbaijan.
