[They’re all nowhere to be found. It’s impossible.]
[There’s no way to reach the minister, general or deputy prime minister.]
Even small media projects can play a key role in transforming societies.
[“It’s not him! I’m telling you it’s not him!!”]
It’s a mafia-style government that runs our country.
[Where are you taking him?]
Azerbaijan is developing from authoritarian country towards a totalitarian country.
[Don’t touch me. What am I saying? Do you live well? Do you live well?]
[How much is your mother’s pension?]
Ilham Aliyev came to power in 2003.
The economy is not diversified.
Seventy percent of our state budget depends on oil and gas industry.
The system that is built in Azerbaijan, it doesn’t serve the people.
And getting worse day by day.
My name is Emin Milli. I am a journalist from Azerbaijan.
I live in exile in Berlin.
I deeply believe that reliable information is very important for any positive change
in society. It’s crucial.
I launched Meydan TV in 2013 in March.
We have citizens, journalists who are sending us constant information, articles, reportage,
and we are publishing them.
Till 2005, I was having comfortable life, and only when Elmar Huseynov was killed I
realized how useless I was.
This is the former home of Elmar Huseynov, former editor in chief of the independent
magazine Monitor.
And on the second of March 2005, he was fatally shot on this very spot.
His killer has never been found.
You know, they dared to kill Elmar Huseynov, and they hoped that by killing him they could
completely silence our society.
It was then when I decided that I will start doing things to make sure that they could
never silence our society.
[The wont be able to stone it?]
[The wont be able to stone it.]
[They will target the camera then. Wow.]
[Who is throwing the stones on you?]
[The guards are throwing stones on me.]
We’re independent; we’re not affiliated with any political party.
Any small media project, even one journalist, which can cover what happened in this or that
part of the country, is becoming an immense threat, even for dictatorship, or for any
dictatorship.
In Azerbaijan, if you are criticizing the government, you can be beaten, you can be kidnapped
and people will not know.
You can be killed.
Jabbar Savalan, satire writer Mirza Sakit, Ganimat Zahidov, editor in chief of Azadliq
Newspaper.
It’s kind of open season for journalists in Azerbaijan.
Khadija is the leading investigative journalist in Azerbaijan.
It’s not that I am pursuing the president’s family everywhere.
It’s simply that their names appear behind every business that I investigate.
She found out that with offshore companies, the president and his family members own various
big chucks of Azerbaijani economy.
Well, of course I am writing about it, I am a journalist. And if they are not happy with
that, well, stop stealing.
They came up with absurd accusations, charges: tax evasion, abuse of power.
[Let me close the court doors, get away.]
[Let me in. Let us in. Let at least one family member inside.]
[She is a family member. Have a conscience!]
I’ve been warned several times, I am not afraid.
It’s not my wish to be arrested. I don’t want to be arrested.
But I know that it may happen, and if that’s the price for being free, okay.
But I feel free.
(Khadija Ismayilova was arrested in Azerbaijan on December 5, 2014.)
(Khadija is now serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.)
I had to leave Azerbaijan in order not to go to jail for the third time.
We were arrested as hooligans.
We were sitting in a restaurant, we were beaten up by two big sportsmen.
And then when we came to police station to report the case, we were detained.
I was sentence to two years in prison. Emin was sentenced to two years and a half.
After I left jail, I was briefly jailed again, and then I left Baku.
I believe in the work Emin is doing, and actually I am tired of excusing ourselves.
One has to pay dearly for trying to change the situation.
So the safety is one of the prices one has to pay.
Recently, I received death threats from president sent by his sports minister.
And twenty-three of my relatives were forced to disown me.
They signed a letter to president. Brother-in-law, who is in jail now, he is facing— He may end
up spending twelve years in jail.
My brother got arrested basically to teach the lesson to anyone who wants to speak out.
That’s what happens.
The stories come from people themselves.
I think the public ultimately knows, we want them to see the reality the way it is.
We don’t want to decide for them. We want them to have that ability to do that on their own.
I don’t see any propaganda in what we do.
I don’t have this feeling that I really left the country.
We are living now, in times that start to remind me of Stalinist times.
I believe that regardless of who is in government, a society needs independent and free sources
of information.
We are not planning to give up. We will do our work till the very end.
And if they kill one of us, there will be new people coming in.
If they jail one of us, or all of us again, there will be people coming and replacing us.
Our voice will be louder, our audience will grow.
We will produce more investigations.
More news, more reporting.
It’s impossible for them to stop our work.
And that’s my message.