Can Yeginsu and Anthony Jones have been instructed, together with Media Legal Defence Initiative and Khaled Aghaliyev, on behalf of Azeri journalist Kamran Mahmudov in the case he has brought to the European Court of Human Rights against Azerbaijan over unexplained travel restrictions which prevented him from leaving Azerbaijan. Further details of the case can be found on MLDI’s website here.
Travel bans are increasingly being imposed on journalists and have recently been described as “a kind of quiet repression” by David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Mr Kaye has stated that travel bans are used by governments “not merely to punish the banned but to deny the spread of information about the state of repression and corruption in their home countries.”
Mr Mahmudov’s case follows on from Aynur Ganbarova and Others v Azerbaijan, an ongoing case in which the European Court of Human Rights has been asked to consider for the first time the lawfulness of travel bans imposed on journalists. In that case, Can Yeginsu, Anthony Jones, and Diarmuid Laffan of 4 New Square are instructed to represent ARTICLE 19, a leading human rights organisation with a specific mandate and focus on the defence and promotion of free expression, in the proceedings brought by four Azerbaijani journalists, including Khadija Ismayilova, recipient of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. More information relating to the case can be found on ARTICLE 19’s website here.
Separately, Can Yeginsu is leading Miranda Butler of Garden Court Chambers for ARTICLE 19 and thirteen other human rights organisations in an application brought against Azerbaijan in the European Court of Human Rights by Ms Ismayilova. Further details of that case can be found on PEN International’s website here.
