Diken<\/a> said Mr Mirkadirov was \u201cdeported for his critical comments about Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan but charged with espionage in his own country\u201d.<\/p>\nVarious media freedom organisations in Turkey have been slow to respond to Mirkadirov\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n
However, foreign observers and media freedom campaigners have criticised Turkey\u2019s decision to cancel Mr Mirkadirov\u2019s work permit and his deportation. Freedom House expressed grave concern and called the circumstances of Turkey\u2019s decision to send Mirkadirov to his country and his immediate arrest in Azerbaijan a \u201chighly suspicious development\u201d, coming shortly after a visit by Turkish Prime Minister Erdo\u011fan to Baku. \u201cThe governments of both Turkey and Azerbaijan are obligated to ensure Mr. Mirkadyrov’s safety, and the charges against him should be dropped.” Freedom House said.<\/p>\n
Condemning authorities in Baku for charging Rauf Mirkadirov with high treason, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Azerbaijan \u201cto drop the trumped-up charges and stop abusing the law to silence independent reporting on the country\u201d. In a statement, the CPJ said Azerbaijan was “quickly becoming one of the leading jailers of journalists in the Eurasia region.”<\/p>\n
Mr Mirkadirov\u2019s civil society activities, particularly his contacts with Armenian journalists seem to have turned him into a target.<\/p>\n
Journalists that follow or participate in conflict prevention and resolution efforts, particularly over Azerbaijan\u2019s dispute with Armenia will see his arrest as a chilling warning. While it is open to discussion whether the journalists have a legitimate role in solving conflict, there is no doubt that the media can exacerbate animosities.<\/p>\n
Whilst being largely unresponsive to the Mirkadirov case, nevertheless, there has been a growing unease in Turkey about a suspected deal between President Aliyev and Prime Minister Erdo\u011fan to cooperate in order to silence opponents of the regimes in both countries.<\/p>\n
Ever since Mr Erdo\u011fan\u2019s visit to Baku earlier this month, Turkish media has been speculating about a \u201cdossier of names, handed to Mr Aliyev, of people to be arrested in Azerbaijan\u201d. These refer to Fethullah G\u00fclen supporters in Azerbaijan. Turkish commentators claim that the Prime Minister took his battle with Fethullah G\u00fclen, a Pennsyvenia-based preacher- turned government opponent to Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
Mr Mirkadirov is not the first Azerbaijani journalist to be deported from Turkey. In February, \u00a0another columnist, Mahir Zeynalov, writing in a\u00a0 Fethullah G\u00fclen community publication, Today\u2019s Zaman, was expelled on unspecified charges.<\/p>\n
Bar\u00e7\u0131n Y\u0131nan\u00e7, \u00a0a prominent Turkish journalist writing in Hurriyet Daily News<\/a> commented on 22 April that Turkey and Azerbaijan relations are having a new honeymoon period lately.\u00a0 She has not mentioned Mr Mirkadirov\u2019s case; but on Turkey\u2019s changing relationship with Azerbaijan, Ms Yinan\u00e7 emphasised the fast growing commercial links between the two countries.<\/p>\n\u201cLong gone are the days when Turkish missions abroad used to allocate offices for the diplomats of the young Azerbaijani republic. Azerbaijan is currently set to become the number one foreign direct investor in Turkey. It owns a TV station and a newspaper in Turkey. It has set up a huge think tank in Istanbul\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Y\u0131nan\u00e7 also quoted a retired Turkish diplomat, Volkan Vural saying that Azerbaijan had more leverage on Turkey than Turkey has on Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadirov\u2019s deportation from Turkey and his subsequent detention, charged with espionage upon arrival in Baku have raised strong international reaction. However, in Turkey itself, there has been very little response to the news. The daily Cumhuriyet, which gave the most prominent coverage to the news, reported the development with a headline \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}