OSCE Criticizes Attacks on Journalists in Azerbaijan

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it is deeply concerned with acts of violence against journalists in Azerbaijan.

The head of the OSCE office in Baku said in a statement Wednesday it is extremely worrying the attackers remain at large despite police assurances that they will be brought to justice.

The statement said Azerbaijan's failure to adequately allow a free media damages the country's reputation as it strives for democracy.

Unknown attackers beat and badly injured a journalist for the opposition newspaper Azadliq Monday in Baku.

A reporter from the same newspaper survived a kidnapping and stabbing in March. Azerbaijani authorities last month also shut down the country's first independent television station, which broadcast programs from the Voice of America, and evicted the staffs of three newspapers from their offices.

By VOA News