As Azerbaijan prepares for a controversial March 18 referendum on lifting presidential term limits, pro-presidential lawmakers are gearing up to adopt a set of media law amendments that would stifle the ability of media outlets to critically examine government conduct, local media watchdogs say.

The amendments, proposed on March 6 by members of Azerbaijan's governing Yeni Azerbaijan Party, will allow courts to shut down a media outlet in case of "abuse of freedom of speech and a journalist's rights." Such abuses are loosely defined as interference in anyone's private life, the distribution of information that works against "the integrity of statehood" or violates public order, and -- incongruously -- the distribution of "pornographic materials."

The proposed amendments also would ban the broadcast or publication of video, audio or photographs of any person without his or her permission.

The changes would further prohibit foreigners and any person without a higher education from working as a newspaper's editor-in-chief. Administrative sanctions and fines could be imposed for a first offense, and repeated violations could result in a two-month shutdown of the offending media outlet.

A court decision would be all that is required for a publication in violation of these stipulations to be closed. Previously, a lawsuit by an executive government agency was required.

The Media Rights Institute, a local media watchdog organization, has called the proposed changes "a serious threat to the freedom and independence of media outlets." Passage of the amendments could subject Azerbaijani media "to incommensurate and terrible sanctions," the organization warned in a March 10 statement.

In proposing the amendments, Nizami Jafarov, head of the parliamentary Commission on Cultural issues, argued that a foreigner cannot be an editor-in-chief because "media is a strategic sphere and it should be under control, not only by the government but also by the people."

"Experience shows that editors . . . using blackmail are usually persons who do not have a higher education," he added on March 6, the state newspaper Azerbaijan reported.

MP Aydin Mirzazade, deputy chairman of the parliament's Defense and Security Commission, agreed. "Azerbaijan is building a democratic and law-based state and strengthening our statehood. The proposed amendments will help journalists and media outlets to be effective, serious and respectful," he said.

In response, Mehman Aliyev, director of the pro-opposition Turan News Agency, scoffed that the amendments "make no sense." All editors of Azerbaijan's main newspapers and news agencies have a higher education, he affirmed. Such discrepancies and the lack of clearly defined terms mean that the amendments provide "loopholes for using the law against mass media organizations," Aliyev charged.

The amendment banning unauthorized public photography and video or audio recording would effectively prevent journalists from doing their jobs, said media law expert Alasgar Mammadli, who characterized the proposed change as "absurd."

If a journalist wanted to film a member of parliament sleeping during a legislative session -- as is occasionally done by ANS TV -- "the amendment would require the journalist to wake the member of parliament and ask permission to film him, wait for him to fall asleep again, and then record it," Mammadli noted.

The amendments, he added, contradict both Azerbaijan's own constitution and provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights for freedom of speech and of the press. The international community has not yet publicly commented on the proposed amendments.

Over the past several years, assaults on journalists and media scandals and arrests have become a recurring feature of Azerbaijani public life. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Legislation providing for freedom of speech and of the press and forbidding press censorship is often overlooked "in practice," according to the US State Department's 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The "media freedom environment [in Azerbaijan] continued to significantly deteriorate during the year," the report found.

Mammadli and other observers fear that further restrictions will be put on journalists' activities, if the referendum removing presidential term limits is approved on March 18.

Changes already voted into law on March 6 mean that broadcast media can lose their licenses for one month if they are found in violation of the mass media law or their license conditions. Licenses can also be revoked if government agencies sanction the broadcaster at least three times in a year. In the past, broadcast media could only be shut down for up to seven days.

The Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety, another media watchdog organization, termed the one-month license revocation "a very serious sanction." "The cases in which such a sanction can be applied must be clearly shown in the law to prevent abuse and opportunities for disproportional interference," the Institute said in a March 10 statement. The legislation does not specify in detail what would constitute a violation of the law. Tohid Aliyev, an attorney for the National Radio and Television and Radio Council, told EurasiaNet that the Code of Administrative Violations would determine when sanctions should apply.

The editor of one pro-government publication argues that criticism of the legislation is misplaced. The amendments stem from the reality of Azerbaijan's media situation, commented Rashad Madjid, editor-in-chief of the newspaper 525th. "The law on mass media is a very democratic law, allowing for newspapers to open easily. But, as members of the Press Council, we have faced facts when some newspapers abused the law and blackmailed and took bribes," Madjid said in reference to Azerbaijan's journalist association. The amendments, he continued, are "an attempt to prevent such bad things."

"It's not right to link the amendments with politics and consider it serious pressure on the media and freedom of press," Madjid concluded.

Meanwhile, Turan director Aliyev's polar-opposite take suggests that the battle over the amendments has only just begun. "The authorities want to protect themselves from mass media, as life in Azerbaijan is divided between the hidden and the public. And they do not want someone to disclose life's hidden side," said Aliyev.