Baku, Azerbaijan: The US Department of State has strongly condemned police raid on US-Funded media house Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Baku, calling this raid as “attack on free media”.
In a statement issued by the US Department of State, the United States expressed serious concern and said that the responsible authorities should respect international commitment to protecting media freedom.
“We are deeply disturbed by reports that employees of the RFE/RL bureau in Baku have been detained in their offices and questioned while the premises were searched by police,” a statement by the US State Department said.
It may be mentioned that Azerbaijani prosecutors raided the Baku offices of RFE/RL, a US-funded organization on December 26. According to Azerbaijani authorities, the raid was carried out as a part of an investigation into the local office of RFE/RL’s service “as a foreign-funded entity.” According to local authorities in Baku, the state prosecutors are probing into foreign-funded NGOs and media sources suspecting massive tax fraud.
