On 9 January, the Facebook page of Jamil Hasanli, the chairman of the National Council of Democratic Forces, was hacked and all posts on the page were deleted. The hackers are also said to have blocked a number of his followers, reducing the total number by more than 70,000.
The National Council of Democratic Forces was established as an alliance of opposition politicians ahead of the 2013 presidential election in the Azerbaijan Republic. Jamil Hasanli was a presidential candidate at the time.
Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (APFP) Chairman Ali Karimli addressed the hackers on his Facebook page:
“You may have hacked Jamil Hasanli’s page but you will not be able to silence Jamil Hasanli. He will speak and write, he will expose you, and our people will find a way to read him and listen to him because our people are tired of you and your lies and want freedom and want to hear the truth. All of your illegal actions are in vain. Our people will find a way to liberate themselves from you.”
Some time ago it was reported that an attempt had been made to hack APFP chairman Ali Karimli’s Facebook page as well. Karimli said that the attackers had only managed to get his page out of his control for 30 minutes. However, during that period of time, the attackers managed to delete posts from several months and to block his followers, reducing them by more than 3,000.
In late March 2017, access
was blocked
to the websites of Radio Liberty, Meydan TV, Turan TV and several other independent websites. The Ministry of Communications initially said it was unaware of that, but later it was revealed in court that it had been done at the request of the Prosecutor-General’s Office. On 12 May, the blocks were upheld by a court ruling.
Recently, Meydan TV’s YouTube account
received
several false copyright and privacy complaints, putting the account in danger of termination by YoiuTube. And on 9 January, Meydan TV’s website was the target of a massive DDoS attack, which blocked access to the page for some time, and has caused glitches that we are still working to solve.
