Related Research Articles
Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.
Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. Uzbek is the majority language, while Russian is widely spoken and understood. Islam is the predominant religion, most Uzbeks being Sunni Muslims.
Uzbekistan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. However, it is opposed to reintegration and withdrew from the CIS collective security arrangement in 1999. Since that time, Uzbekistan has participated in the CIS peacekeeping force in Tajikistan and in United Nations-organized groups to help solve the Tajik and Afghan conflicts, both of which it sees as posing threats to its own stability. Uzbekistan is an active supporter of U.S. efforts against worldwide terrorism and joined the coalitions which have dealt with both Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a member of the United Nations, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Partnership for Peace, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It belongs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization, which comprises 7 Central Asian countries: Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is a founding member of and remains involved in the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan.
Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia, lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the capital and largest city of the country. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and China to the east and southeast. With a population of 6.7 million, Kyrgyzstan is the 34th-most populous country in Asia, and the 4th-most populous country in Central Asia. Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's seven million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians.
Alexenia Dimitrova is a Bulgarian journalist and author who started her career in the late 1980s. She works for 24 chasa, the second largest Bulgarian daily. Her favorite topics are secret archives of the Cold War era, shadow affairs and corruption, money laundering, suspicious ownership and property, and secret societies. She profiled finding and reuniting lost people all over the world. For her series of publications about missing persons that started in July 2002, she received Chernorizets Hrabar in November 2004. She was nominated for the same award in 2003.
Human rights in Kyrgyzstan improved after the ouster of President Askar Akayev in the 2005 Tulip Revolution and the installment of a more democratic government under Roza Otunbayeva. While the country is performing well compared to other states in Central Asia, many human rights violations still take place. While LGBT rights have been declining in recent years, freedom of press has been improving.
Maria Angelita Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist. She is the co-founder and CEO of Rappler. She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia for CNN. She will become Professor of Professional Practice in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University on July 1, 2024, and will be a Distinguished Fellow at Columbia's new Institute of Global Politics beginning in the fall of 2023.
International organizations have frequently alleged that Azerbaijan has violated human rights standards established in international law.
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is a regional non-governmental, non-profit network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in Southeast, South, East and Central Europe. The organization aims to create a bridge between international media activities and the media developments in the region. It has headquarters and national committees in several countries. In total 33 member states or territories are included in SEEMO: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan
Joachim Dyfvermark is a Swedish investigative reporter/producer working for the current affairs program Uppdrag granskning broadcast on Sveriges Television.
Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev is an Azerbaijani politician who is the fourth and current president of Azerbaijan. The son and second child of former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev, Aliyev became the country's president on 31 October 2003, after a two-month term as prime minister of Azerbaijan, through a presidential election defined by irregularities shortly before his father's death. He was reelected for a second term in 2008 and was allowed to run in elections indefinitely in 2013 and 2018 due to the 2009 constitutional referendum, which removed term limits for presidents. Throughout his electoral campaign, Aliyev was a member of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, which he has headed since 2005.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents. It was founded in 2006 and specializes in organized crime and corruption.
On 13 May 2005, protests erupted in Andijan, Uzbekistan. At one point, troops from the Uzbek National Security Service (SNB) fired into a crowd of protesters. Estimates of those killed on 13 May range from 187, the official count of the government, to several hundred. A defector from the SNB alleged that 1,500 were killed. The bodies of many of those who died were allegedly hidden in mass graves following the massacre.
Galima Bukharbaeva is an Uzbek journalist known for her reporting on state authoritarianism and her eyewitness account of the 2005 Andijan massacre.
Khadija Rovshan qizi Ismayilova, also 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.
Paul Radu is an investigative journalist based in Bucharest, Romania. He is the director of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, for which he and cofounder Drew Sullivan received the Special Award by the European Press Prize. He is also one of the cofounders of the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism. He investigates transnational crime in Eastern Europe. He has received multiple international awards for his journalism. He believes that journalists should not be activists, but should rather trust that objective journalism is a sufficient contribution to whatever causes one might otherwise advocate. He teaches at the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Summer School of Investigative Reporting. In 2008, he sat on a Central European Initiative jury to name that year's best investigative journalist; the jury chose Drago Hedl. In 2009, he appeared on 48 Hours investigating sexual slavery and human trafficking in Romania. He has also investigated human trafficking in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Neha Dixit is an Indian freelance journalist, covering politics, gender and social justice. She is a visiting faculty at Ashoka University and has been awarded with the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2016) as well as CPJ International Press Freedom Award (2019).
Labour rights in Azerbaijan are substantially constrained. Labor rights activists face repression in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani law nominally allows the formation of labor unions and the right to strike, but in practice, most unions collaborate with the authoritarian regime, many categories of workers are prohibited from striking, and most major industries are dominated by state-owned enterprises where the government sets working conditions.
Justice for Journalists Foundation is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to fight impunity for attacks against media. Based in London, its main goal is to protect journalists from the abuse of their right to freedom of expression, increase public awareness about attacks on media workers and provide journalists with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect themselves from professional risks.
Manisha Ganguly is an investigations correspondent at The Guardian, specialising in Open Source intelligence to expose war crimes.
References
- ↑ "Tracking Truth". Fraud Magazine.
- ↑ "Azerbaijan's Ruling Aliyev Family and Their Associates Acquired Dozens of Prime London Properties Worth Nearly $700 Million". Armenian Mirror Spectator. Oct 4, 2021.
- ↑ "Sanctioning an Oligarch Is Not So Easy: Why the Money Trail of Alisher Usmanov, One of Russia's Wealthiest Men, Is Difficult to Follow". The Paradise. Mar 22, 2022.
- ↑ "Miranda Patrucic". International Journalism Festival.
- ↑ "FP Virtual Dialogue: Protecting the Press". Foreign Policy. May 16, 2022.