Azerbaijani blogosphere discusses convicted bloggers

The arrest and subsequent imprisonment of the young bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Gadjizade, convicted for hooliganism and inflicting bodily injuries, has not resulted in any decrease of critical ideas in the blogosphere of Azerbaijan. This is proved by the analysis of blogs and interviews conducted by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent among civil society figures, experts and bloggers.

Thus, blog http://journaleast.wordpress.com of Reshad Aliev, a graduate of the Department of Journalism of the Baku State University, placed mainly news items before the bloggers' arrest. After Milli and Gadjizade were arrested, the topic of criminal prosecution of young people for free-thinking became dominant.

"While before the arrest of Emin and Adnan I wrote about social problems, after they were put behind bars their topic became the main one in my blog," Nigyar Fatali, another blogger (http://fatalin.blogspot.com/), said in her conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In the opinion of Ilgar Mamedov, a blogger and head of the public association "Republican Alternative" ("REAL"), the arrest of young bloggers has even more strengthened the critical moods in the blogosphere.

"Certainly, we have data that some active participants of Internet forums after 'prophylactic talks' held with them by law enforcers disappeared from forums. However, there were no cases of direct pressure on bloggers with the aim of restrict their political freedom, censorship or compulsion to self-censorship," Mr Mamedov has continued.

Independent lawyer Erkin Gadirli, head of Public Committee in Defence of Bloggers' Rights, believes that the idea of censorship over the Internet is absurd.

Recently, the society has seen a break between generations; and the biological age has nothing to do with it, the lawyer is sure. The break happens at the level of the speed of thinking, its format and direction, as Mr Gadirli has added.

"Sitting at home, young people learn about what happens from foreign sources; they trust foreign media from the viewpoint of efficiency, objectivity and language accessibility. However, the authorities still believe that if they forbid, say, import of religious literature, arrest two or three activists, ban NGOs and so on, their problems will be solved. The present thinking youth just prefers to ignore the authorities; and the elder generation follows them," Erkin Gadirli asserts.