Azerbaijan prosecutors raid US-funded radio station

[inanna]

Source: BBC

Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) said that armed police ordered employees to leave the building of its Azerbaijani service Radio Azadliq.

The raid comes amid a crackdown on journalists and human rights activists in the oil-rich ex-Soviet state.

Earlier this month, Azerbaijani officials arrested an investigative reporter working for Radio Azadliq.

The director of the radio station, Kenan Aliyev, told AFP news agency that armed police had shut the station early on Friday.

"Our equipment and computers are being confiscated," he said. "Journalists are being forced out of the office."

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30606466

[easychoice]

1. Radio Free C.I.A.

lol

[uhnope]

2. RFE are not the bad guys

It's wrong to see the radio station as the bad guy in this equation.

In recent months, Azerbaijan has been accused of putting pressure on journalists and activists who have criticised the government for its failure to comply with international human rights standards and for arresting protesters.

RFE/RL performed an invaluable service during the Cold War and still does to these throwback dictatorships. I've met people who were busted by the police for listening to even music shows (Louis Armstrong) on RFE.

[easychoice]

3. My sister was an Intelligence Officer in the Air Force...

25 years, ending rank: Major
nuff sed

[True Blue Door]

6. You don't know what you're talking about.

Why do some people think ideology is a substitute for knowledge?

[reddread]

10. do tell

[iamthebandfanman]

4. How about a lil REM ?

Cant help myself.

[True Blue Door]

5. Another shit petro-state that will happily become irrelevant with renewable energy.

[jakeXT]

7. Stealing oil and bad cement jobs.. BP at its best

Striking resemblances between BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm 18 months beforehand have emerged from leaked US embassy cables.

The cables reveal that some of BP's partners in the gas field were upset that the company was so secretive about the incident that it even allegedly withheld information from them. They also say that BP was lucky that it was able to evacuate its 212 workers safely after the incident, which resulted in two fields being shut and output being cut by at least 500,000 barrels a day with production disrupted for months.

Other cables leaked tonight claim that the president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing $10bn of oil from his country and using "mild blackmail" to secure the rights to develop vast gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-bp-azerbaijan-gulf-spill

[True Blue Door]

8. The whole wretched petro-business ecosystem goes down in our lifetimes.

And not in the Pyrrhic, Peak Oil, dystopian Cormac McCarthy sort of way - we get to see them fail and be replaced with a saner, more decent, more rational energy economy.

[Ramses]

9. RFE is full of CIA clowns

School of the Americas propaganda arm. Used to spread Cold War hate for a long time. Ronald Reagan would be embarrassed and humbled at its violent right wing bent.

[reddread]

11. what does that make the usual suspects

who feel differently?

[Xolodno]

12. "oil-rich ex-Soviet state"

Nothing else needs to be said.