Meydan TV is a Berlin-based [1] Azerbaijani non-profit media organization. Founded by dissident blogger and former political prisoner Emin Milli in 2013, [2] Meydan TV publishes news in Azerbaijani, English, and Russian. [3] In May 2013, Meydan TV announced plans for broadcasting simultaneously through the Turkish Türksat communications. The word "meydan" means town square in Azerbaijani.
Meydan TV gained prominence for its reports and online broadcasts on corruption, human rights and other issues in Azerbaijan, which have been used by the international media, particularly during the 2015 European Games in Baku when several reporters and foreign observers were barred from the country. Meydan TV is a partner of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Several reports of Meydan TV were made with the support of European Endowment for Democracy (EED) organization. [4]
During the 2015 European Games Azerbaijani channel Lider TV interviewed a local man who posed as a foreigner in order to create a "provocation". [5] After Meydan TV identified the interviewee as Seymur Seferov, a displaced Azerbaijani citizen from the Jabrayil Rayon, the Lider TV report on purported foreigner went viral in Azerbaijani social media. [5] In 2015 it was reported that several Meydan TV journalists were prosecuted, arrested or received travel bans (including Aynura Ismayil, Shirin Abbasov, Ayten Farhadova and Aysel Umudova). [6] According to Ali Hasanov, Meydan TV website and several other media outlets were not following the accreditation rules for foreign media representatives in Azerbaijan approved on 18 March 2015. [6]
On 9 April 2016, Azerbaijani website Haqqin.az accused Meydan TV of overestimation of Azerbaijani casualties during the 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes. Meydan TV which put the number of military casualties at 94 instead of officially stated 31 compiled the list according to posts in social networks. [7] Haqqin.az stated that soldier Aidyn Hasanov listed by Meydan TV among those killed was actually treated in a military hospital for arm injury. [7]
The Republic of Azerbaijan is a member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO's Partnership for Peace, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the World Health Organization, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Council of Europe, CFE Treaty, the Community of Democracies; the International Monetary Fund; and the World Bank.
Rustam Mammad Ibrahim oghlu Ibrahimbeyov was a Soviet and Azerbaijani screenwriter, playwright and producer, well known beyond his home Azerbaijan and the former Soviet Union. He was the chair of the Cinematographers' Union of Azerbaijan and director of the Ibrus Theatre.
The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan, largely known by its abbreviation SOCAR, is a fully state-owned national oil and gas company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan. The company produces oil and natural gas from onshore and offshore fields in the Azerbaijani segment of the Caspian Sea. It operates the country's only oil refinery, one gas processing plant and runs several oil and gas export pipelines throughout the country. It owns fuel filling station networks under the SOCAR brand in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, Switzerland, and Austria.
The mass media in Azerbaijan refers to mass media outlets based in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Television, magazines, and newspapers are all operated by both state-owned and for-profit corporations which depend on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues.
Alxanlı is a village and municipality in the Fuzuli District of Azerbaijan. It has a population of 2,139. Alxanlı was located close to the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Umid gas field is the second largest natural gas field in Azerbaijan. It is situated in the South Caspian Sea, off the coast of Azerbaijan, approximately 75 kilometres (47 mi) southeast of Baku, at a depth of 170 metres (560 ft). In translation from Azerbaijani, Umid means Hope.
Russian is the first language of more than 150,000 people in Azerbaijan, predominantly ethnic Russians, as well as of Russified Azeris, Ukrainians, Jews, and other minorities. In 1994, 38% of Azerbaijanis spoke Russian fluently as a second language.
Khadija Rovshan qizi Ismayilova, alternatively spelled Ismailova, is an Azerbaijani investigative journalist and radio host who is currently working for the Azerbaijani service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, until recently as the host of the daily debate show İşdən Sonra. She is a member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Zakir Asger oghlu Hasanov is an Azerbaijani politician and colonel general who has been the Minister of Defence of Azerbaijan since 2013.
Clashes on the Armenian–Azerbaijan border (Tavush–Qazakh) and the line of contact between the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan started on 27 July 2014. Reported casualties of the clashes were some of the highest since the 1994 ceasefire agreement that ended the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Rasul Jafarov is a lawyer and prominent human rights defender in Azerbaijan.
Arif Mammadov is an Azerbaijani former diplomat and opposition activist.
The 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also known as the Four-Day War, April War, or April clashes, began along the former Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact on 1 April 2016 with the Artsakh Defence Army, backed by the Armenian Armed Forces, on one side and the Azerbaijani Armed Forces on the other.
Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku is an unfinished 33-floor hotel and condominium tower located in the Nasimi District in Baku, Azerbaijan. Construction began in 2008, when the project was initially planned as an apartment building. The project is owned by Baku XXI Century, a company affiliated with several members of the Mammadov family, which has been described as having a reputation for corruption.
The diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Germany established in 1992 after Germany recognized the independence of Azerbaijan.
The shelling of Alxanlı or the Alxanlı tragedy was shelling of a house in Alxanlı village and municipality in Fuzuli District of Azerbaijan by the Armenian Armed Forces with 82 mm and 120 mm artilleries on 4 July 2017. As a result of the shelling, 51-year-old Azerbaijani woman Sahiba Guliyeva and her 18-month-old granddaughter Zahra Guliyeva were killed, while 52-year-old Sarvinaz Guliyeva was seriously injured, but survived.
The 4th Army Corps, also referred to as the Baku Army Corps is a regional military formation of the Azerbaijani Land Forces, that covers Absheron Peninsula and the coast, currently deployed from the capital of Baku.
The 2020 Azerbaijani protests, also known within Azerbaijan as the Karabakh March, were series of civil protests from 12 to 15 July in various cities and towns in Azerbaijan. They erupted during the Armenian–Azerbaijani border clashes, with the protestors demanding full-scale war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Gubad Ibadoghlu, also spelled Gubad Ibadoglu, is an Azerbaijani political activist, a scholar, a critic of oil and gas industry, and a prominent human rights and environmental defender, who from 2021 has been a research fellow at the London School of Economics. He was supposed to start a new teaching position at TU Dresden in 2023. However, on July 23, 2023 he was arrested in Azerbaijan and remains under investigation. The international community has condemned his arrest as arbitrary and politically motivated.
Sevinj Vagifgizi or Sevinj Vagif gizi Abbasova is an Azerbaijani reporter, journalist and political prisoner. She has worked in independent mass media for more than 15 years. In 2022, she became the editor-in-chief of the independent media platform Abzas Media.