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Two unknown men assaulted and beat Eynulla Fatullayev, a famed reporter of an opposition magazine, Monitor, on Monday, in the city centre.  Fatullayev is known for his extremely critical articles about the various officials of the incumbent Azerbaijani government. (27 July 2004)

The Election Monitoring Centre (EMC) of non-governmental organizations was established on July 24, 2001 on the initiative of 8 NGOs in Republic of Azerbaijan.  The EMC primarily works in the direction of the development of the election system, improvement of the election legislation, organization of monitoring in the election process, creation of the democratic election environment, and assistance to hold a democratic election. (26 July 2004)

The Monitoring Group of NGOs hold a roundtable on assessing the latest report of the CE experts on political prisoner issue in the Republic of Azerbaijan last Friday. The CE experts’ report, which says the problem of political prisoners in Republic of Azerbaijan has been solved, met with protests and confusion by the local human rights activists and opposition-minded political parties.  (25 July 2004)

The Azerbaijani Supreme Court revoked the legal status of a Muslim organization, accusing it of spreading “religious propaganda,” the court’s presiding judge said Thursday, Associated Press reported. (23 july 2004)

Jean-Louis Laurens, Director of the Council of Europe (CE) on Strategic Planning Department, stressed in a Friday meeting with Samad Seyidov, chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on international relations, that he expected Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections in 2005 to be held more democratically and fairly. (23 July 2004)

The new head of the Baku office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Maurizio Pavesi, on Thursday stated that the incidents like the recent kidnapping of the Baku Khabar chief editor “poses a threat to the future of the press in Republic of Azerbaijan,” Turan reported. (23 July 2004)

Azerbaijan’s law enforcement bodies suspect that some employees of foreign embassies in Baku along with police officers working for airports and railway department are involved in trafficking of Azeri children to foreign countries, Baku’s Russian-language daily newspaper Echo reported Tuesday, citing “an informed source in the law enforcement organs.” (21 July 2004)

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday called upon Azerbaijan’s law enforcement bodies to find out and punish the perpetrators of the last Saturday’s assault on the chief editor of an opposition daily Baku Khabar. (21 July 2004)

Reporters Without Borders marked Azerbaijan’s National Press Day on 22 July by calling for the release of a newspaper editor who has spent the last nine months in jail. Rauf Arifoglu, editor of the country’s main opposition daily Yeni Musavat and vice president of the opposition party Musavat, has been imprisoned in the capital Baku since 27 October 2003.  (20 July 2004)