Azerbaijan: How to Measure Free Speech on the Internet?

Baku hosted the UN Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, with more than 1,600 delegates from 128 countries attending the four-day event. Civil society activists argue that the countrys struggle for online freedom of expression should not be forgotten despite Azerbaijan being selected to hold the annual global conference. (Photo: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz)

Civil society activists in Azerbaijan are trying to push back against government efforts to restrict space for public debate. And theyre hoping a recent global Internet forum in Baku will expand international support for their cause.

The United Nations Internet Governance Forum, held in the Azerbaijani capital November 6-9, brought together more than 1,500 government officials, business executives, international organization representatives and civil-society activists from more than 100 countries. They discussed a wide variety of web-related issues, including Internet security, copyright laws and online eavesdropping.

In the coming weeks and months, rights activists in Azerbaijan hope the forum will prove a catalyst for broader international discussion about what they contend are government policies designed to stifle free speech. If not for the IGF (Internet Governance Forum), we would not be able to attract so much international attention to problems with Internet-freedom in Azerbaijan, said Rasul Jafarov, the director of the Baku-based Human Rights Club, part of the Expression Online Initiative, a non-governmental coalition.

The Internet emerged in 2009 as a new front in an ongoing free-speech battle, following the imprisonment of two video bloggers who posted a clip online that portrayed President Ilham Aliyev as a donkey. Over the past year or so, authorities have struggled to contain flash-protests whipped up via the social network Facebook. In a report distributed at the Forum, the Expression Online Initiative ranked the country as partly free.

While the Azerbaijani government may not block access to websites or social networks, noted Jafarov, there is a serious problem with content regulation and [governmental] monitoring of email correspondence, social-network content and websites.

Such shadow pressure prompts many Azerbaijanis to censor themselves online, he continued. They are afraid to post critical stuff online [so as] not to be summoned to the Ministry of National Security and have other problems, he said.

Media lawyer Alasgar Mammadli, a board member of the watchdog Azerbaijan Internet Forum, agreed. People are afraid even to like a cartoon about the president posted on Facebook, Mammadli said. The right to host the IGF does not mean that the country has a free Internet.

Authorities defend their record by emphasizing quantity over quality when it comes to the Internet.

In an official letter to the Forum, President Aliyev argued that since 65 percent of the countrys 9.16 million citizens were online, Azerbaijans approach toward the Internet should be deemed free. Aliyev, writing in general terms, also credited the the global network for encouraging freedom of speech on the Internet, the widening of social networks, [and] ensuring the open and transparent activity of government.

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Azerbaijan: How to Measure Free Speech on the Internet?