Ganimat Zahid

Affiliated media: Journalist

Incident date: March 5, 2024

Attack type:

• Defamation, spreading libel about a media worker or media outlet

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Safety of Journalists Platfrom

Location: Azerbaijan, Baku

Additional information:

On 5 March 2024, Sevinj Osmanqizi, an Azerbaijani journalist living in exile in the United States and a host of the YouTube channel Osmanqizi TV, was targeted in a speech advocating violence against Azerbaijani journalists and bloggers who live and work abroad. Osmanqizi and several journalists and bloggers (including Qənimət Zahid and Tural Sadıqlı) were named in a speech by the MP and chairman of the human rights committee Zahid Oruc in Parliament (Milli Majlis). Claiming that they were engaging in "informational terrorism" and "denigration" of President Ilham Aliyev, and that judicial and legal means of prosecution were proving ineffective, Oruc labelled exiled Azerbaijani journalists and bloggers who write about politics "legitimate targets", calling for them to be "neutralised by all possible means", in particular by disregarding the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.