Azerbaijan has taken consistent actions to ensure freedom of expression, to improve material-technical base of the media, to strengthen social protection of journalists, the questions the European and world concerned with, Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Social and Political Department Chief Ali Hasanov told AzerTAc correspondent after the seminar held at the headquarters of the European Broadcasting Union in Geneva. 
"After 6-hour long discussions, we proved that the freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional norm in Azerbaijan and the country is one of the leading countries in CIS space to ensure pluralism", Hasanov underlined. "We could change the biased and subjective opinions of the anti-Azerbaijan forces. "There were certain gap in Azerbaijan's journalism after the Ministry of Press and Information was liquidated where norms of journalism must be prepared, the basic codes must be formed. They must include the issues of the bodies which must carry out public control over the journalists, the bodies where journalists must complain and the bodies which must solve the problems related to the life of a journalist. The discussions led to the fact that the Azerbaijani journalists united and held a congress in 2003. The Press Council existing today was established there", Ali Hasanov said at the seminar.
Noting Azerbaijan is one of the free states, the Azerbaijani official sad: "The Azerbaijani government refused from any mechanism to influence the media after the Press Council was established". "By cooperating with the Council of Europe in 2002, Azerbaijan developed and adopted a new law on "Television and Radio Broadcasting", corresponding to the international standards."
"We agreed to further continue media development activities jointly with the Council of Europe (COE) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)", Ali Hasanov emphasized.

AzerTAc