Azerbaijan drops charges against sole independent news agency: Editor

BAKU: Azerbaijan has dropped tax fraud charges against the tightly-controlled country's sole independent news agency following pressure from rights groups and the West, its director said on Thursday.
"Charges in a criminal case against Turan news agency have been dropped in the absence of the crime," Turan's director and editor Mehman Aliyev told AFP.
"Common sense prevailed thanks to the pressure which rights groups, the United States and the European Union have exerted on the Azerbaijani government," he added.
Established in 1990, Turan was one of the first independent news agencies in the former USSR.
A rare voice of dissent in the ex-Soviet Caspian Sea nation, the news agency has not shied away from criticising the government of strongman leader Ilham Aliyev over the past years.
In August, prosecutors froze Turan's bank accounts as part of a criminal probe into alleged unpaid taxes of US$22,000 (RM93,071), forcing the news agency to suspend operations.
The European Union, the United States and international rights groups have expressed concern over the case.
Human Rights Watch has denounced the case as the "latest in a vicious crackdown on critical media" in Azerbaijan.
The authorities in the oil-rich country have faced strong international criticism over claims they routinely harass and jail Ilham Aliyev's opponents on trumped-up charges.
Officials deny this.
Azerbaijan ranked 162 out of 180 countries in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders.
Ilham Aliyev took over in 2003 after the death of his father Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and communist-era leader who had ruled Azerbaijan with an iron fist since 1993. — AFP