Rafiq Tagi Update

Reporters Sans Frontieres posted a December 12th update on the status of imprisoned Azeri journalist Rafiq Tagi:

The detention of Rafiq Tagi, a journalist with the newspaper Sanat, and Samir Sadagatoglu, his editor, was extended for another two months yesterday by judge Gulnara Tagizade of the Nasimi regional court on the grounds that further investigation is needed.

Tagi and Sadagatoglu have been held since 15 November on a charge of “inciting racial, national and religious hatred” under article 283 of the criminal code because of a 6 November article by Tagi entitled “Europe and Us” which argued that European values were superior to those of the Middle East and Asia.


The controversy surrounding Tagi's article was deliberately incited by Iranian backed Azeri Islamists, and three Iranian clerics have issued fatwas calling for the murder of Tagi and his editor. Instead of standing up to this Rushdie-style effort at censorship by murder, the Azeri regime has sought to appease it by practicing its own form of censorship. This will only encourage the Islamists to escalate their campaign.