Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev missed the informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg due to a busy work schedule. Aliyev's administration also noted that his absence from the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on December 21 was due to Azerbaijan not being a member of the organization.
A court in Simferopol fined Crimean Tatar human rights activist and journalist Lutfiye Zudieva 2,500 rubles under the article on abuse of freedom of speech. Due to traffic jams, she was several minutes late for the hearing and warned the judge about this through her defense lawyer. However, the judge considered this disrespectful and heard the case in eight minutes.
Previously, the Internal Affairs Center drew up a report against Zudiyeva for “distributing information about foreign agents in the media without indicating their status.” On her Facebook page, Lutfiye Zudieva posted a publication containing information about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) without indicating that it was included in the register of foreign agents.
The human rights activist stated that only the editorial board or founder of the media, as well as the editor-in-chief or other official can be held administratively liable in this regard. She believes that she is not the subject of an offense and, as an individual, was not obliged to comply with the requirements.