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with crushing all forms of pluralism, President Ilham Aliyev has been waging a relentless war against his remaining critics since 2014. Independent journalists and bloggers are thrown in prison if they do not first yield to harassment, beatings, blackmail, or bribes. Independent media, such as Zerkalo and Azadlig, have been stifled economically. Others, such as Radio Azadlig, have been closed by force. The main independent news websites are blocked. In a bid to silence those who continue to resist in exile, such as Emin Milli and Ganimat Zahid, the authorities harass their family members still in Azerbaijan. The regime has also had Azerbaijani journalists detained in Georgia and Ukraine, and sued in France.”
Georgia (upthreeplacesto61s t )goesdownasararesuccessstorywiththe index entry crediting its media as “pluralist but still very polarised” while observing that “the reforms of recent years have brought improvements in media ownership transparency and satellite TV pluralism, but owners still often call the shots on editorial content”.
SouthCaucasusneighbour Armenia (downoneplaceat80t h )issaidtohave print media that “are diverse and polarized [while] investigative journalism flourishes online, but pluralism lags behind in the broadcast media.” However, impunity largely prevails in the country when journalists are physically attacked, the report says.
MovingacrosstoCentralAsia, Turkmenistan (ranked178t h ,justasitwaslast year, and only outscoring Eritrea and North Korea in the ranking), is referred to by the report as an “ever-expanding news black hole”.
Kazakhstan (downoneto158t h )issaidtobeplaguedby“uncertainty surrounding the succession to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the ‘Leader of the Nation’ who has ruled since 1990, [which] has accentuated his paranoia and determination to keep a tight grip.”
2.3 Former Georgian minister found guilty in torture case
Bachana “Bacho" Akhalaia, a former Georgian minister and ex-head of the prison system, has been found guilty of organising torture and sexual abuse.
Akhalaia, who served as defence minister in 2009-2012 and interior minister in July-September 2012. His brief tenure at the head of the interior ministry ended abruptly following protests sparked by revelations of torture and rapes in Georgian prisons.
In the current case, T bilisi City Court sentenced Akhalaia to a further nine years in prison after finding him guilty of organising torture and sexual abuse of retired colonel Sergo Tetradze, Civil.ge reported. His deputy Nikoloz Dzimtseishvili was found guilty in the same case and given a four-year prison sentence.
Tetradze was among several men tortured in an attempt to force them to confess to being Russian spies, prosecutors said. He died from heart failure following his abuse in custody. Akhalaia was among several former top officials close to ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili arrested after Georgian Dream won the 2012 election in the country.
8 GEORGIA Country Report May 2018 www.intellinews.com