Surveillance and Filtering
In November 2009 the OpenNet Initiative classified Internet filtering in Azerbaijan as selective in the political and social areas and found no evidence of filtering in the conflict/security and Internet tools areas.
Azerbaijani law does not include a formal legal foundation requiring Internet surveillance. Nevertheless, surveillance does occur, mainly by means of sporadic visits of the State Security Services to ISPs. In 2000-2001, there was an unsuccessful attempt to adopt the Russian SORM-II model for Internet surveillance, but the project was interrupted because of financial difficulties and opposition from ISPs and the Internet community.
In order to deal with cyber attacks, the MCIT is planning to establish a council dealing with Internet-related problems.25 The Azerbaijani Internet community is hoping that the proposed council will be able to decrease cyber security risks without undermining the privacy of users. Another recent MCIT initiative is the launch of an Internet antihackers agency.
There are several reported cases of people arrested because of content posted online. The author of the Web site http://www.pur.gen.az, infamous for its biting humorous content, posted a caricature of the president of Azerbaijan in 2006. In 2007, the Ministry of National Security searched one of the Internet cafés in Baku and discovered this caricature on the cache page. The author and the webmaster of the site, as well as several café guests, were arrested and indicted for organized criminal activities. The individuals were released several days later, but the Web site was shut down by its owners in order to avoid further prosecution.
Another case followed the rapid increase of the price of petrol, gas, and electricity in the country in January 2007. The author of http://www.susmayaq.biz26 published a protest letter to the president online. As a result, the author was arrested, and the Web site was temporarily inaccessible on ten Azerbaijani ISPs from January to March 2007.27 After a protest by youth organizations, the author was released without charges.
In 2007 and 2008, the OpenNet Initiative tested for content filtering on four ISPs—AzNet, DeltaTelecom, AzerOnline, and AzEuroTel, as well as several end user locations (such as Internet cafés). Most of the ISPs in the country purchase international traffic from Delta Telecom and utilize the infrastructure of AzTelecom for local traffic. It appears that most of the filtering occurs on Delta Telecom lines. The ONI found reverse filtering on a number of U.S. military sites.
Evidence of second-generation controls was also evident in the run-up to the 2008 parliamentary elections. The political section of the most popular online forum (http://www.day.az/forum) in Azerbaijan was removed around 20 days before the elections and was still inactive in May 2009.
The popular opposition Web blog Tinsohbeti.com was blocked in March 2008 after it published an article detailing the political and economic problems in Azerbaijan. Earlier, in 2006, the same Web site was blocked because it posted satirical cartoons of the president.28 Before the presidential elections in October 2008, the Web site was unblocked, but by then the original domain registration had expired and no longer hosted the opposition Web blog.
The autonomous republic of Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan, closed down Internet cafés for several days in March 2008, according to the Azerbaijani press.29 The reasons behind the ban remain unclear, but restrictive policies on seeking and distributing information in the republic are not isolated cases. At the end of 2008, a number of Web sites were locally blocked in Nakhchivan.30
At the Internet café level, many owners impose restrictions that prevent users from downloading large attachments and visiting certain pornographic sites. But these policies are not universal, and they are implemented at the discretion of Internet café owners.
At the business level, most employers limit access to the Internet through the use of intelligent firewalls that restrict the downloading of files with certain extensions (.mp3, .avi, .mpg, .mov, etc.), as well as access to storage file servers and to the servers of instant messaging clients such as ICQ, MSN, Skype, and others.
The ongoing cyberwar between Azerbaijani and Armenian hackers has also caused disruptions to some Web sites and ISPs. In early 2007, five Armenian Web sites were inaccessible, and users were displayed a block page commenting on the political affiliation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.31 At the same time, the Web site of the Azerbaijani Public Television ITV was taken down.32 Since most of the allegedly inaccessible sites contained oppositional political content, there are allegations that the Azerbaijani government was involved in the attacks. However, ONI testing could not confirm these suspicions. The ONI did not test for political issues related to the proclaimed independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.33
Read more about this topic: Internet In Azerbaijan