Yeni Musavat, which has the largest circulation in Azerbaijan (14,500 daily), has long been a subject of attacks on the media. Many pro-governmental and independent analysts consider the newspaper\'s coverage of domestic events rather radical. In light of the recent health problems of President Aliyev, Yeni Musavat\'s stepped up its criticism of the authorities and has been repeatedly calling for the resignation of the President. Although many in Azerbaijani society believe it is unethical to discuss the health of the President in this way, Rauf Arifoglu, the chief editor of Yeni Musavat, is convinced that the health of the number one person in the country should concern everyone.

The police that arrived at the incident scene arrested several of the attackers. As it appeared later, Faramaz Allahverdiyev, member of the so-called \"Gudrat Hassanguliyev group\" that split from another opposition party, The Popular Front, headed the group. At a press conference the next day, Arifoglu noted that the attackers demanded the end of articles on the President’s health. He is convinced that the authorities are behind the attack as the amount of criticism, pressure and harassment toward the newspaper has, he said, increased in the last few weeks.

Representatives of the U.S. embassy in Baku, OSCE’s Azerbaijan office, and members of the Parliament immediately visited the office of the newspaper and condemned the attack. Peter Burkhardt, the head of OSCE office in Baku, has promised to personally follow the investigation and called these attacks a pressure on freedom of speech. Local human rights organizations, such as the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan and Helsinki Citizen\'s Assembly also condemned the attacks and called them a primitive method of political pressure.

Meanwhile, Ali Hasanov, the head of President\'s Office\'s socio-political department said that the authorities strongly condemned any kind of illegal action. At the same time, he pointed out the growing tensions between the \"society and the newspaper\", and thus called for more balanced coverage of the political events. Hasanov also called for the implementation of court decisions, referring to those law suits that were brought up against the newspaper in December of the last year. Some of those twelve lawsuits found Yeni Musavat guilty and subjected it to heavy fines.

The Council of Editors and the newly established Press Council have expressed concerns about the incident and have called the authorities to stop its harassment of the independent media. Aflatun Amashov, the chairman of the Press Council, has called the incident as a \"major test\" for his organization\'s ability to solve the problems of the press in the country.

Yeni Musavat, although officially an independent outlet, is the mouthpiece of the major opposition party Musavat (Equality). Musavat’s leader Isa Gambar is one of the major contenders for power in the upcoming presidential elections. In 2000, prior to the parliamentary elections, the newspaper and the party were also subjected to pressure from the government, even resulting in the arrest of the Yeni Musavat editor Arifoglu on the charges of terrorism and plane hijacking. The charges were dropped later.

The latest incident is clearly a testimony to the growing tensions in Azerbaijani society and the widening rift between the ruling party and the opposition. On May 4, the same day of the attack, thousands of people rallied in the streets of Baku to demand the resignation of the President due to his health problems. The Musavat party was one of the organizers of the demonstration, thus calling for the criticism of the authorities, who had previously asked the opposition parties to postpone the rally.

The head of the police department of Baku, Nazim Nagiyev, has promised to take serious measures toward punishing the attackers. Meanwhile, the press community in Baku is furious about the incident and calls for immediate steps to guarantee the security and safety of the newspaper staff. Large-scale demonstrations by the representatives of the media power are not excluded.