Azerbaijan, Lankaran, 18 January /corr. Trend P.Aliyeva / Due to the beating of the employees of the Azerbaijani TV channel 'Janub TV', broadcast in the south region of the Country, the Head of the TV channel intends to make an appeal to the court, the Executive Director of TV channel 'Janub TV', Eltan Idrisoglu, reported to Trend on 18 January.
When correspondent of the channel, Nurlan Nasirov and operator Vidadi Azizov, were preparing a report on the Electricity Distribution Network of Azerbaijan's district of Masalli, the head of the Network, Allahverdi Ismaylov, insulted and beat them with a chair. According to Idrisoglu, the head of the Network was instructed that he should apologize to the channel otherwise a lawsuit will be brought against him on the grounds of moral and material damage inflicted to the channel, he said.
The Institute of Media Rights believes that beating a journalist is a criminal offence specified in the Article 309.2 on Overstepping Authority of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. According to this article, officials overstepping their authorities and inflicting significant damage to the rights and legal interests of the citizens and organizations is considered to be a crime.