With nine journalists currently behind bars, Azerbaijan is ranked 9th on the list of 10 world's worst journalist jailers the Committee to Protect Journalists published for 2014. But when you consider the per capita rate, it is second only behind the hyper repressive Eritrean regime in Africa,according to an analysis by journalist Till Buckner.

Using numbers from the Center to Protect Journalists, China tops the list with 44 imprisoned journalists but considering the size of the country's population of 1.3 billion, this means one jailed journalist to 30.8 million residents. Including the size of the country in population reshuffles CPJ's list and propels the Alijev regime to the top ahead of such other bastions of anti-democracy as Iran, Syria, Burma and Vietnam.  Of the countries, Azerbaijan leads all of them in hypocrisy – it’s the only one that presents itself as a democracy.  It’s time to drop that charade now.

Azerbaijan has less than ten million people and nine journalists in jail _ or one per 1.1 million residents. This means it jails at a rate 28 times more than China. CPJ’s 2014 list does not include Khadija Ismayilova (number 10), who was arrested beginning of December 2014 after being accused of violating state secrecy laws which she denied so we can expect the number to be higher.

Ismayilova herself believes she is being punished by the regime for producing a series of stories that reveal connections between President Ilham Aliyev's family and friends and major components of the Azerbaijani economy.

The list also does not include at a host of activists jailed in Azerbaijan this year who were administrating Facebook groups on which members posted reports and commentaries about human rights abuses and allegations of widespread corruption.

The CPJ report says worldwide there are 220 journalists behind bars, nine more than in 2013. Other countries black-listed by the CPJ are Iran, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Syria, Egypt, Burma and Turkey.

reportingproject.net