BAKU, Azerbaijan — Azerbaijan has charged the editor of a Talysh ethnic minority newspaper with spying for neighboring Iran and inciting public unrest, officials said Wednesday. But human rights activists said the journalist, who has criticized the authoritarian government for its treatment of minorities, may have grown too influential for officials' taste.
The case
also comes as Azerbaijan-Iran relations have grown strained amid Iranian
concerns about alleged Israeli spy activity in Azerbaijan.
Talysh
Voice editor Hilal Mammadov was arrested last month after allegations
of heroin possession. On Wednesday, police and prosecutors alleged in a
joint statement that Mammadov was recruited by Iran’s security services
in 1992, and that they believe Mammadov was acting to undermine Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred.
Mammadov has criticized authorities for allegedly repressing minority populations in Azerbaijan. The Talysh, who speak a language akin to Persian, live along Azerbaijan’s border with Iran.
The newspaper editor earlier gained attention in northern neighbor Russia for being behind a wildly popular Internet clip.
Mammadov
created a wedding video showing dueling singers improvising barbs
ending with a dismissive phrase that translates roughly as: “Who do you
think you are? Get lost.” The video was intended to illustrate local
customs, but the phrase became popular in its own right and was adopted
by Russia’s opposition movement in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Journalists are frequently jailed in Azerbaijan
on charges that rights activists say are fabricated. Mammadov’s
predecessor as editor of Talysh Voice, Novruzali Mammadov, was sentenced
to 10 years in jail in 2008, also on charges of spying for Iran. He was
moved to a hospital shortly after being jailed and died in August 2009.
Prominent
local human rights activist Leyla Yunus said at the time of Hilal
Mammadov’s arrest that he may have been targeted because he had become
too influential in the Talysh community for the government’s liking. It
was not immediately clear how or if Novruzali and Hilal Mammadov were
related.
Azerbaijan has nurtured close
relations with the United States, while American nemesis Iran has
expressed concern over alleged Israeli intelligence activity in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan,
meanwhile, says it has arrested dozens of people allegedly hired by
Iran to carry out terrorist attacks against the U.S. and Israeli
embassies as well as Western-linked groups and companies.
Azerbaijan
hosted the high-profile Eurovision Song Contest in May, leading some
rights workers to hope that political freedoms might receive a boost as
the country fell under the international spotlight. But Amnesty
International has since reported a rise in police harassment of
activists who took part in anti-government protests during Eurovision.
