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CITING ETHNICITY, AZERBAIJAN BARS PHOTOJOURNALIST
CPJ Press Freedom Online
http://www.cpj.org/2011/07/citing-ethnicity-azerbaijan-bars-photojournalist.php
July 7 2011
New York, July 7, 2011--Diana Markosian, a freelance photographer for
Bloomberg Markets magazine was denied entry to Azerbaijan last week
by authorities who cited her ethnicity as a reason, international
news reports said.
On June 27, border guards at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport
in Baku detained Markosian on arrival from the Latvian capital, Riga,
then expelled her back to Riga the next day, according to press reports
and CPJ interviews. Markosian told CPJ that the border guards took
her passport, saying that she had an Armenian last name and that they
"needed to clarify something." Then they put her in the airport's
transit zone where she spent 16 hours until the U.S. Embassy in Baku
helped her to buy a ticket for the next return flight to Riga.
Markosian holds both U.S. and Russian citizenship, she told CPJ.
A government spokesman told the Baku-based news agency APA that
Markosian was deported because authorities would be unable to provide
her with "security" since she is an ethnic Armenian.
Markosian told CPJ that before her travel to Baku she and the
newsroom told the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry about her visit, and
were assured there would not be any complications. APA quoted Foreign
Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov as saying the government had sent
a letter to Bloomberg management saying that Azerbaijan is at war
with Armenia and because of this "there will be problems to provide
security for Armenian Diana Markosian." Authorities asked Bloomberg
to send another photographer instead of Markosian, Polukhov told APA.
There have been no reports of other ethnic Armenians being denied
entry to Azerbaijan.
Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg LP, told CPJ that the company
had not put out any statements on the case.
"It is deeply disturbing that Azerbaijani authorities would cite the
ethnic background of a foreign reporter as a reason for barring her
entry to the country," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "Diana
Markosian should be allowed to work in Azerbaijan as freely as any
other journalist."
Azerbaijan and Armenia are engaged in peace talks over Azerbaijan's
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, populated by mostly by ethnic
Armenians. A violent conflict over the territory erupted in 1988.
Although the ceasefire was declared in 1994, the conflict has not
ended and violent incidents continue to take place on the border.
From: A. Papazian
CPJ Press Freedom Online
http://www.cpj.org/2011/07/citing-ethnicity-azerbaijan-bars-photojournalist.php
July 7 2011
New York, July 7, 2011--Diana Markosian, a freelance photographer for
Bloomberg Markets magazine was denied entry to Azerbaijan last week
by authorities who cited her ethnicity as a reason, international
news reports said.
On June 27, border guards at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport
in Baku detained Markosian on arrival from the Latvian capital, Riga,
then expelled her back to Riga the next day, according to press reports
and CPJ interviews. Markosian told CPJ that the border guards took
her passport, saying that she had an Armenian last name and that they
"needed to clarify something." Then they put her in the airport's
transit zone where she spent 16 hours until the U.S. Embassy in Baku
helped her to buy a ticket for the next return flight to Riga.
Markosian holds both U.S. and Russian citizenship, she told CPJ.
A government spokesman told the Baku-based news agency APA that
Markosian was deported because authorities would be unable to provide
her with "security" since she is an ethnic Armenian.
Markosian told CPJ that before her travel to Baku she and the
newsroom told the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry about her visit, and
were assured there would not be any complications. APA quoted Foreign
Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov as saying the government had sent
a letter to Bloomberg management saying that Azerbaijan is at war
with Armenia and because of this "there will be problems to provide
security for Armenian Diana Markosian." Authorities asked Bloomberg
to send another photographer instead of Markosian, Polukhov told APA.
There have been no reports of other ethnic Armenians being denied
entry to Azerbaijan.
Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg LP, told CPJ that the company
had not put out any statements on the case.
"It is deeply disturbing that Azerbaijani authorities would cite the
ethnic background of a foreign reporter as a reason for barring her
entry to the country," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "Diana
Markosian should be allowed to work in Azerbaijan as freely as any
other journalist."
Azerbaijan and Armenia are engaged in peace talks over Azerbaijan's
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, populated by mostly by ethnic
Armenians. A violent conflict over the territory erupted in 1988.
Although the ceasefire was declared in 1994, the conflict has not
ended and violent incidents continue to take place on the border.
From: A. Papazian