

“I’ll call ANS TV.” Until a year ago, that was the threat often heard in Azerbaijan when local officials ignored street repairs or a factory wall collapsed. It was one place where many Azerbaijanis thought they could share their neighborhoods’ problems, and maybe even get results.

But that all changed on July 19, 2016 when Azerbaijan’s broadcasting board suspended the privately owned TV station’s operations to prevent “a provocation” and “the open propaganda of terrorism.”

The charges stemmed from an ANS interview, planned for broadcast, with the US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Azerbaijan’s closest ally, Turkey, had just accused of organizing a coup attempt against the Turkish government. Azerbaijan’s National Council on Radio and Television claimed that ANS’ interview suggested it supported the coup. The station was eventually closed entirely.

Unlike other Azerbaijani media outlets which have wrangled with the authorities, ANS (Azerbaijan News Service), one of the first successful private TV stations in the former Soviet Union, had never been critical of the government. It had named President Ilham Aliyev “Person of the Year” repeatedly, and even had a pledge of support from his powerful father, the late President Heydar Aliyev.

In a 1997 interview, the elder Aliyev had called the station “proof of democracy in Azerbaijan and the existence of free media.”

“[N]obody would be able to stop your activities,” he pledged.

Yet, one year on, ANS remains off the air. Most of the journalists among its former hundreds of employees have left for other pro-government TV channels. A scant few are freelancing.