Watchdog

BAKU -- A court in Baku has ordered that an investigative journalist with RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, Khadija Ismayilova, be held in pretrial detention for two months.

Ismayilova was summoned to appear in the Sabail District court in Baku court on December 5 over a case in which a man accused her of pressing him to commit suicide.

Nenad Pejic, the editor in chief of RFE/RL, condemned Ismayilova's treatment.

"The arrest and detention of Khadija Ismayilova is the latest attempt in a two-year campaign to silence a journalist who has investigated government corruption and human rights abuses in Azerbaijan," Pejic said. "The charges brought against her today are outrageous. Khadija is being punished for her journalism."

The OSCE's representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, also assailed Ismayilova's arrest.

"The arrest of Ismayilova is nothing but orchestrated intimidation, which is a part of the ongoing campaign aimed at silencing her free and critical voice,” Mijatovic said.

"I repeat my call on the authorities in Azerbaijan to stop this practice, which is detrimental to media freedom,” Mijatovic said.

Ismayilova has also been charged in a separate case centering on a document that she posted on social media that indicated Azerbaijani secret services used an explicit, illegally filmed sex tape to blackmail an opposition activist into informing on other opposition figures.

On December 4, Azerbaijan's Presidential Chief of Staff Ramiz Mehdiyev publicly accused Ismayilova of treason and called RFE/RL's employees in the country spies.

Ismayilova sees the legal pressure as part of a broader crackdown against civil society by Azerbaijan's government.

She is known for her extensive reporting on the business interests of President Ilham Aliyev's family.

In October, Azerbaijani authorities prevented Ismayilova from traveling to Prague, where she had been due to attend an international conference.

A U.S.-based rights watchdog says Internet freedom around the world has deteriorated for the fourth consecutive year, with the steepest declines in Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey.

In its "Freedom On The Net 2014" report, released on December 4, Freedom House says that Iran, Syria, and China are the world's worst abusers of overall Internet freedom.

The report, which covers the period between May 2013 and May 2014, assesses the level of Internet and digital-media freedom in 65 countries, with each receiving a score from 0 for the most free to 100 for the least free.

It says that of the 65 countries assessed, 36 have experienced negative trends since May 2013.

Based on the scores, the report ranks countries as free (0-30 points), partly free (31-60 points), or not free (61-100 points).

INFOGRAPHIC: World Map Of Internet Freedom

Of the countries in RFE/RL's broadcast area that are covered by the report, only two are ranked as free: Georgia, with 26 points; and Armenia, with 28 points.

Ukraine (33 points), Kyrgyzstan (34), Azerbaijan (55), Russia (60), and Kazakhstan (60) are among countries in the "partly free" category.

The report says that Russia's score fell by 11 points over the past five years. It says that since Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012, authorities have implemented legislation to block online content, critical or opposition media outlets, and mentions Putin's signing a bill authorizing the blocking -- without judicial oversight -- of any website that hosts content deemed as "extremist" or calls to protest.

The Freedom House paper says the bill, which became effective in February, was used to crack down on websites critical of Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Ukraine's ranking declined five points, mostly because of violence targeting social media and online journalism during the Euromaidan protests, and additional evidence revealing that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's government had been keeping activists, journalists, and political opponents under Internet surveillance.

The report mentions Azerbajian's moves to expand criminal defamation to Internet content, further muzzling government criticism. It notes the case of Khadija Ismayilova, a journalist for RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, who has repeatedly been subjected to blackmail and gender-based smear campaigns.

Iran (89), Uzbekistan (79), Pakistan (69), and Belarus (62) are states where the Internet is not free.

The paper says that Iran remains the worst country in the world for Internet freedom, despite initial hopes over the election of reformist President Hassan Rohani. It says the government continued to hand down harsh punishments, sentencing people to lengthy jail terms for promoting Sufism online, among other online activities.

In Pakistan's case, it mentions the case of a woman who was stoned to death by local men in June 2013 after a tribal court found her guilty of possessing a mobile phone.

The report notes an improvement in Belarus, where authorities eased enforcement of some restrictions, but mentions the case of a blogger who exposed police corruption and was subsequently harassed and forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

The report says that, from May 2013 to May 2014, some 41 countries adopted or proposed laws to penalize free speech online, step up control over Internet content, or expand Internet surveillance.

The United States, while ranked the sixth-most-free country in terms of internet use, saw a two-point decline over the past year.

But the report says that efforts to reform U.S. surveillance legislation gained momentum in the aftermath of revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.