The Azerbaijani government has ordered the suspension of BBC News Azerbaijani operation in Baku whle the influential news agency Turan has been forced to drastically scale down its operations in the country. The BBC said in a statement that it had made the "reluctant decision" to close its office in the country after receiving a verbal instruction from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mehman Aliyev, a prominent journalist and Director of Turan, announced they would be shutting down their offices due to financial problems. Turan was the last independent media outlet that still had offices inside Azerbaijan. Numerous independent journalists have been detained in Azerbaijan while Reporters Without Borders gave the country a highly negative classification on press freedom.
The BBC corporation stated that it “deeply regrets this restrictive move against press freedom". State-controlled media has reported that the government wanted to reduce the number of BBC staff working in the country to one. The BBC said its team of journalists in Baku have suspended their journalistic activities, while it seeks clarification on the instruction, but that it remains committed to continuing to report in the Azerbaijani language. "We deeply regret this restrictive move against press freedom, which will hinder our ability to report to and from Azerbaijan for our audiences inside and outside the country," a BBC spokesperson said in a statement.
The BBC has received nothing in writing from the Azerbaijani government and has sought clarification via a number of channels. BBC News Azerbaijani reaches on average one million people every week and its audience has been increasing. It has operated in Azerbaijan since 1994, providing impartial news and information, initially via radio broadcasts and later across a range of digital platforms.
Meanwhile, in a letter addressed to readers, Turan director Mehman Aliyev announced they would be shutting down their offices due to financial problems, and would stop publishing as a news outlet but rather as an analytical one. Turan is the oldest independent media outlet in Azerbaijan.
In his letter to readers, Aliyev stated that for more than three decades, the Turan News Agency “has been a pillar of independent journalism in Azerbaijan, providing objective and reliable reporting amid political and economic instability. Founded in 1990, in the final days of the Soviet Union, we have endured the challenges of transition, war, and reform while remaining committed to journalism that serves the public interest”.
Last week, in an interview with Time TV, Aliyev said that when they worked in the 1990s and 2000s, Turan employed 45 people, but now there are less than 10. “We never received money from USAID or another fund, I have no connection with other independent media outlets Meydan, Toplum TV, or AbzasMedia that have been the focus of government investigations. Since 1999, we have tried to save our media's economic independence, yet year by year, independent media have economically lost freedom and some are under the control of the government,” he told Time TV.
Aliyev added in the letter: “This is not the end of our mission, but rather an evolution. The information space is changing, and we recognise the need to adapt. In the coming months, we will explore new formats, ones that focus not only on news but also on analysis, identifying key issues, and proposing solutions. The future of journalism is not just about breaking news but about fostering understanding”.
Aliyev stated that no one demanded them to stop their work or threatened them with arrest. The government’s first attack on Turan was in August 2017, when Aliyev was detained for three months and was accused of tax evasion. Aliyev’s statement came a little over a week after Turan published a news story about Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s official plane, which they reported had also been subject to external interference on the same day of the AZAL flight which crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan after its radar and communications were reportedly jammed as it approached its intended destination, the Chechen capital Grozny.
