The French authorities have started to apply their biased policy against Azerbaijan to media representatives as well. So, on June 11, the entry of an employee of AZERTAC to the Schengen area was blocked based on an illegal and unjustified order of France. Journalists from many countries of the world were invited to the event organized by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At the Cologne/Bonn airport, our employee Aygun Hasanova was told that she was banned from entering the Schengen area by France. Seeing that the multiple-entry Schengen visa, invitation to the seminar and other documents are in order, the official bodies of Germany have also decided to investigate this issue.
Due to this biased action of France against the media worker, the employee of AZERTAC was detained at the airport for several hours. However, he was allowed to enter the country after the Azerbaijani embassy in Germany and the UNFCCC Secretariat intervened in the matter, and at the same time, German official bodies saw that France’s request was unfounded. It should be noted that the journalist was invited to the event of the UNFCCC and the issue of climate change is one of the most urgent problems at the moment. This action of France against journalists raises a big question – why is France trying to prevent an Azerbaijani journalist from participating in media training at COP29? France should take into account that many French journalists are expected to come to Baku to participate in COP29. It turns out that such a politicized approach should be applied to them too?! We consider this step of the French authorities regarding the employee of AZERTAC as creating an obstacle to journalistic activities, stifling the diversity of opinions, showing a biased position against the Azerbaijani journalist, and we strongly condemn it.
It should be noted that before this, France has shown a biased position towards the journalists of AZERTAC, calling them spies by carrying out a smear campaign against them in its media. This action of the French government, which is the “herald” of the principles of media freedom, free speech, and diversity of opinion, does not fit into any logic.
As a result of President Emmanuel Macron’s half-hearted policy, his party recently suffered a bitter defeat in the elections to the European Parliament. However, instead of solving its internal problems, the French authorities do not want to give up their bias against Azerbaijan, which is always a supporter of peace, stability, and development, and have already started to implement this dirty intention against individuals, including media representatives.
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