America Defends Imprisoned Bloggers

The American State Department has taken the unusual step of rushing to the defence of bloggers imprisoned in foreign countries, thus demonstrating how much of a central place blogging now holds in media and freedom of expression. The State Department held a press conference in order to express its “regret” over the fact that two bloggers from Azerbaijan have been thrown into jail by authoritarian Azerbaijani officials for directing criticism at the government. Twenty-six year old Emin Milli and 30 year old Adnan Hajizade are prominent youth leaders in Azerbaijan, as well as successful bloggers and vocal proponents of free speech. Both were sentenced to two years in prison by a local court based on trumped up charges of “hooliganism” relating to an alleged altercation at a restaurant.

But most observers—including the US State Department– know perfectly well that these two bloggers’ imprisonment has more to do with the fact that they had regularly criticized the Azerbaijani government over its heavy-handed, authoritarian approach. In fact, in one satirical post, the bloggers used a donkey to depict a government official giving a press conference. The State Department indicated that it would now aim to cooperate with officials in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, in order to extend democratic practices and values in that country.

Over the past week we reported on two other instances, where authoritarian regimes targeted bloggers and tried to silence the Blogosphere. In fact, US officials had something to say about the story of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who was abducted and beaten by communist secret police agents. The US State Department issued a press release earlier this week, in which it referred to the abuse and assault of a popular blogger as “deplorable.”