“As Azerbaijani courts have once again rubber-stamped the detention of yet more journalists on allegations of illegally receiving Western funding, it is increasingly clear that these court cases are merely a pretext for suppressing what remains of the country’s independent press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Kanal 13 journalists Aziz Orujov and Shamo Eminov, drop the charges against them and their colleagues at Abzas Media and Toplum TV, and allow independent media to work freely.”
Police arrested Orujov in November on charges of illegal construction. In December, police detained Eminov and charged both with conspiracy to smuggle currency, alleging the pair had illegally brought money from foreign donor organizations into the country.
The journalists deny the charges. If found guilty, they face up to eight years in prison, the journalists’ lawyer Bahruz Bayramov told CPJ.
Since November, authorities have also detained six members of the anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media on charges of currency smuggling and charged four journalists with Toplum TV with currency smuggling, two of whom are being held in pretrial custody for four months.
]]>“As Azerbaijan sweeps up and detains critical journalists across the country, this latest decision to extend the incarceration of Abzas Media staff illustrates authorities’ steadfast determination to censor its best and brightest reporters by locking them up,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately drop all charges against Abzas Media staff, release all unjustly jailed journalists, and end their crackdown on the independent press.”
If found guilty, the six journalists, who have all been charged with conspiracy to smuggle currency, could face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
In separate hearings on March 14 and 15, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, extended by three months the detention of Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli, chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, and project manager Mahammad Kekalov, according to news reports and a Facebook post by Abzas Media.
In recent weeks, the courts also issued three-month extensions for the detention of three of Abzas Media’s journalists. Rulings were made in early March for Hafiz Babali, and Elnara Gasimova, who were arrested in December and January, and in February for Nargiz Absalamova, who was arrested in December.
The crackdown on Abzas Media—an outlet known for investigating allegations of corruption among senior state officials—began in November when police raided its offices and accused staff of illegally bringing Western donor money into Azerbaijan.
Abzas Media said that the raid was part of President Ilham Aliyev’s pressure on the outlet for “a series of investigations into the corruption crimes of the president and officials appointed by him.” The outlet has continued publishing with a new team in Europe and with the support of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based group that pursues the work of imprisoned journalists.
The Abzas Media staff are among 10 journalists from three independent media outlets currently jailed in Azerbaijan, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
Earlier in March, police raided Toplum TV’s office and a court ordered that founder Alasgar Mammadli and editor Mushfig Jabbar be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges.
Broadcaster Kanal 13’s director Aziz Orujov, and reporter Shamo Eminov have been in jail since November and December, respectively, on the same charges.
]]>On March 6, dozens of plainclothes police officers in the capital, Baku, raided Toplum TV’s editorial office at around 1:30 pm, confiscated its equipment and the phones of all staff who were present, and took at least 10 of them to Baku City Police Department for questioning, according to news reports and Toplum TV’s chief editor, Khadija Ismayilova, who spoke to CPJ by phone.
All of the journalists were freed at around midnight except for video editor Jabbar, reporter Farid Ismayilov, and social media manager Elmir Abbasov, according to Ismayilova, a multiple award-winning investigative journalist, who was jailed from 2014 to 2016 in retaliation for her work.
The police claim to have found 3,200 euros (US$3,500) in Jabbar’s apartment, 3,100 euros (US$3,390) in Ismayilov’s apartment, and 2,700 euros (US$2,950) in Abbasov’s home, according to the regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot).
On March 8, the Khatai District Court in Baku ordered Jabbar to be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges, while Ismayilov and Abbasov were released on bail.
Also on March 8, plainclothes police arrested Toplum TV’s founder Mammadli and took him away in an unmarked vehicle as he left a clinic where he was receiving treatment for suspected cancerous tumours, according to multiple media reports and footage of the arrest.
On March 9, the Khatai District Court ordered Mammadli — who is also the founder of Media Rights Group, a local press freedom NGO — to be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges, after police said they found 7,300 euros (US$7,970) in cash in his apartment, those sources said.
The journalists have denied the charges, which are punishable by up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code, and said that the police planted the money in their homes.
“Following similar attacks on Abzas Media and Kanal 13, the raid on Toplum TV and arrest of its journalists indicate that Azerbaijani authorities are intent on eradicating the last vestiges of the country’s independent press. Reports that police detained the outlet’s founder Alasgar Mammadli while he was receiving treatment for suspected cancer are particularly outrageous,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately release Mammadli and Jabbar, drop all charges against Toplum TV staff, and stop retaliating against independent media for their reporting.”
Third media outlet to face smuggling charges
Toplum TV is one of the last significant independent media outlets in the country, reporting on politics, investigations into official corruption, and allegations of voting irregularities during February’s presidential elections, in which President Ilham Aliyev won a fifth term.
It is the third independent news outlet in Azerbaijan to face currency smuggling charges in recent months, as relations decline between Azerbaijan and the West. Since November, six members of anticorruption investigative outlet Abzas Media and two journalists with independent broadcaster Kanal 13 have been detained after authorities accused them of illegally bringing Western donor money into Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani authorities have not publicly accused Toplum TV of illicit Western funding but the state-affiliated Azerbaijani Press Agency reported that Toplum TV illegally received half a million dollars from Western donors to foment unrest.
Since the initial arrests of Abzas Media staff in November, pro-government media that Ismayilova has said are acting on instructions from Azerbaijani authorities have repeatedly claimed Toplum TV and Ismayilova represent another Western-funded “network of subversion” and were misleading young journalists into anti-state activity ahead of the February elections.
Shortly after the police raid, Toplum TV’s Instagram account was deleted and its YouTube channel was renamed and all of its content deleted, Ismayilova said, adding that this “shows authorities’ real intention,” which is to “silence any platform where criticism is expressed.”
Toplum TV’s office remains sealed by police, who have yet to return any of the outlet’s confiscated equipment or journalists’ phones, she said, describing the charges against Toplum staff as “absolutely absurd.” None of the searches of journalists’ homes were conducted with lawyers present as police denied entry to some, Ismayilova told CPJ.
CPJ’s email requesting comment on the case from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which responds on behalf of the police, did not immediately receive a reply.
]]>The letter highlights how Azerbaijani authorities have implemented internet restrictions on several occasions during military conflict since 2020.
In a major crackdown on the independent press leading up to elections, authorities have arrested at least nine journalists from prominent outlets in retaliation for their work.
Read the full letter here.
]]>On December 22, police in the capital, Baku, detained Eminov, a freelance reporter who contributes to the popular YouTube-based broadcaster Kanal 13, as he was on his way to conduct an interview, according to media reports and the outlet’s chief editor Anar Orujov, who spoke to CPJ in a telephone interview.
The following day, the Sabail District Court in Baku ordered Eminov to be held in pretrial detention for three months and five days on charges of conspiring to bring money into the country illegally, those reports said.
On December 19, police also brought currency smuggling charges against Kanal 13 Director Aziz Orujov, who was already being held in pretrial detention since being charged on November 27 with illegal construction, which his lawyers rejected as retaliatory, according to the independent news website Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot) and Kanal 13’s Anar Orujov, who is also Aziz’s brother.
If convicted, the journalists could face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
Prosecutors accused Orujov, Eminov, and other “unknown” individuals of bringing 90,000 manat (US$52,940) in cash from foreign donor organizations into Azerbaijan through “numerous transactions” during 2022 and 2023, according to court documents reviewed by CPJ. The journalists denied the charges, Anar Orujov told CPJ, saying they were “the latest step in authorities’ attempts to silence Kanal 13’s critical reporting.”
On December 11, the court ordered Kanal 13 to be blocked in Azerbaijan, according to news reports and a copy of the court decision, which CPJ reviewed, on the grounds that the outlet spread “false,” “insulting,” “defamatory,” and “discrediting” information about state officials and others.
“Amid Azerbaijan’s ongoing wave of journalist detentions, the latest arrests and charges against Kanal 13 journalists and the blocking of the channel only underline how keen authorities are to stifle critical voices ahead of February’s presidential elections,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Kanal 13’s Aziz Orujov and Shamo Eminov, and all other unjustly jailed journalists, allow Kanal 13 to broadcast, reform laws banning foreign funding of the media, and end their repression of the independent press.”
Kanal 13 has broadcast mainly on YouTube since authorities unofficially blocked its website in 2017, Anar Orujov said, adding that, as of January 8, the outlet’s YouTube channels were still accessible in Azerbaijan.
Orujov and Eminov are among seven journalists and media workers being held in pretrial detention on allegations of smuggling money into the country from foreign donor organizations since November 20, including five members of the anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media.
Emin Huseynov, director of independent media freedom group Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, told CPJ that Azerbaijani authorities have increasingly restricted legal avenues for media outlets to receive foreign funding since 2013, amid a wave of prosecutions of independent media and rights groups.
Anar Orujov told CPJ that Kanal 13’s only source of revenue was YouTube earnings, describing the allegations as “fabricated.”
Eminov’s wife, Durdana Eminova, told local and regional media that police called her on the evening of his arrest on December 22, told her that he had been detained, and asked her to bring one of his diplomas to the station. When she went home to collect the diploma, the house appeared to have been searched, and the journalist’s laptop was missing, she said.
Authorities froze the bank accounts of Aziz Orujov, Eminov, and three other journalists at Kanal 13, and also blocked the accounts of Orujov’s wife and the pension card of his mother, Anar Orujov said.
Kanal 13 regularly covers sensitive topics such as demonstrations and human rights violations and gives space to opposition views on its YouTube channels, where it has a combined 2 million subscribers. On December 2, authorities sentenced Kanal 13 presenter Rufat Muradli to 30 days’ detention on hooliganism charges denounced by the outlet as “absolutely not credible,” releasing him on January 1.
In 2017, authorities sentenced Aziz Orujov to six years in prison on charges of illegal entrepreneurship and abuse of power, which was widely viewed as retaliation for his journalism, and released him on probation in 2018.
On January 23, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Fazil Guliyev, responded by email to CPJ’s inquiries about charges against Eminov and Orujov, calling claims that authorities are criminally prosecuting the journalists for exercising freedom of expression and opinion “completely groundless.” Guliyev said that “all individuals are held responsible only in relation to the specific illegal acts they have committed.”
Editor’s notes: The text has been amended in the fourth paragraph to clarify which body brought new charges to Aziz Orujov. A response from Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of internal affairs was added on January 23.
]]>“By arresting widely respected investigative journalist Hafiz Babali, Azerbaijani authorities are only confirming that their real aim in targeting Abzas Media is to silence its uncompromising reporting on official corruption allegations,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately release Babali along with all other unjustly jailed journalists and stop the ongoing wave of reprisals against the independent press.”
Police in the capital, Baku, detained Babali, economics editor at independent news agency Turan, in a local railway station on December 13 and took him to his home in the nearby city of Sumgayit, where they conducted a search, according to media reports. Officers confiscated the journalist’s computer, cell phone, and some documents, before taking him to the Baku Police Department.
A government spokesperson said Babali was arrested in connection with criminal investigations into anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media, without specifying the charges, those reports stated. Since November 20, Azerbaijani authorities have ordered four members of Abzas Media, including director Ulvi Hasanli and chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, to be held in pretrial detention for up to four months on charges of conspiring to bring money into the country unlawfully, amid accusations by authorities that Western embassies and donors funded the outlet illegally. If found guilty, each faces up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
Investigators previously questioned Babali on November 28 and froze his bank accounts in connection with the Abzas Media case, according to news reports and Facebook posts by the journalist. Babali said he told investigators he published investigations on Abzas Media’s website but knew nothing about the outlet’s finances.
In an interview with U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Babali said he believed a recent Abzas Media corruption report focusing on the head of Azerbaijan’s State Security Service was “the last straw” for Azerbaijani authorities before their crackdown on the outlet.
Babali is at least the seventh member of the press arrested in retaliation for his work in Azerbaijan in the past month. CPJ is currently investigating the cases of three other journalists arrested on extortion charges since December 8 to determine if they are related to their work.
On December 29, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Ismet Aliyev, told CPJ by email that a court on December 14 ordered Babali detained pending trial on the conspiracy charges, saying that Babali “took part in receiving and distributing a large amount of foreign currency funds that were smuggled into” Azerbaijan. “In general, opinions and claims about the connection between the criminal liability of human rights defenders and journalists and their professional activities stem from the attempts of supporters and relatives of those persons to involve international organizations in the issue and to benefit from their support,” Aliyev said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on January 2 to include comments from Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of internal affairs.
]]>On Saturday, police in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, arrested Muradli, a presenter for the popular online broadcaster Kanal 13, on charges of minor hooliganism and disobeying police orders. Later the same day, the Khatai District Court in Baku sentenced him to 30 days’ detention on those charges, according to news reports and a copy of the court verdict reviewed by CPJ.
Muradli denies the charges, Kanal 13 chief editor Anar Orujov told CPJ. Orujov said the allegations against the journalist were “absolutely not credible” and were a part of Azerbaijani authorities’ ongoing crackdown against Kanal 13 and other independent media.
Muradli’s detention came four days after authorities ordered Kanal 13 director Aziz Orujov, who is Anar’s brother, to be held in pretrial detention for three months on charges of illegal construction, which his lawyer said were in retaliation for his journalism. Four members of anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media have been detained on financial crime accusations since November 20.
“The sixth Azerbaijani journalist arrested in less than two weeks, Rufat Muradli, appears to have been sentenced on charges every bit as spurious and pretextual as those facing his colleagues,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Muradli and the other unjustly jailed journalists immediately and stop their crackdown on independent reporting.”
According to the court verdict, two police officers approached Muradli just after midday on a street in Baku’s Khatai district because he was “shouting obscenities.” When police “called him to order,” the journalist “did not obey,” so the officers arrested him. The verdict did not provide any additional detail.
An associate of Muradli told regional outlet Caucasian Knot that Muradli had dropped him and two other individuals off outside a café, saying he would park the car and meet them inside, but he never returned. Muradli’s lawyer quoted the journalist as saying that police arrested him in the car park without explanation. The court convicted Muradli “effectively without a hearing” and did not allow the defense to speak, his lawyer told Caucasian Knot.
Azerbaijani authorities commonly use trumped-up charges of hooliganism against government critics, according to rights organizations, including in numerous cases involving journalists. In February, photojournalist Vali Shukurzade was sentenced to 30 days in jail on charges of hooliganism and disobeying police orders, which his lawyer said were fabricated.
Muradli is also a deputy chairman of the unregistered Azerbaijan Democracy and Prosperity Party, whose chairman Gubad Ibadoghlu has been detained since July on charges widely criticized as politically motivated. However, Orujov told CPJ the timing of Muradli’s arrest amid a wave of journalist detentions, including Kanal 13’s director, strongly suggested it was related to his journalism. Orujov said Muradli was well-known as the presenter of Kanal 13’s political show on its Azerbaijani-language YouTube channel, which has more than 400,000 subscribers.
Separately, on Monday, police in Azerbaijan’s southwestern city of Lankaran detained freelance reporters Shahla Karim and Aytaj Mammadli while they were conducting street interviews, on the grounds that the pair lacked press IDs, according to news reports and Karim, who spoke to CPJ. Karim said police deleted video footage from Mammadli’s cell phone and attempted to delete footage on Karim’s camera storage card, but stopped and returned her storage card when she called the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Police released both journalists after about an hour and a half.
On December 16, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Fazil Guliyev, told CPJ via email that a local official asked Karim and Mammadli why they were interviewing municipal workers. Guliyev added, “since no unlawful act had been committed police officers serving in that area did not detain anyone and did not delete images from anyone’s phone.”
Guliyev added that allegations of fabricated hooliganism charges against government critics are “the baseless views of certain individuals, including some media representatives.”
Editor’s note: This text has been updated in the 10th paragraph to reflect that Karim and Mammadli are freelance journalists. It has also been updated in the 11th and 12th paragraphs with a response from the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent after publication.
]]>“The continued arrests of Abzas Media journalists are unacceptable and only show how Azerbaijani authorities are unable to forgive the outlet for its bold anticorruption coverage,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Journalists should not be prosecuted in retaliation for their vital public interest reporting, nor should they be used as pawns in diplomatic spats. Azerbaijani authorities must immediately release Nargiz Absalamova, her Abzas Media colleagues, and all other unjustly jailed journalists.”
On Friday, December 1, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, ordered Absalamova detained on charges of conspiring to bring money into the country unlawfully, local media reported. Police in Baku arrested Absalamova, a reporter for Abzas Media, on Thursday.
Absalamova is the fourth member of Abzas Media to be held in pretrial detention on those charges since police said they had found 40,000 euro (US$43,650) during a raid on the outlet’s office on November 20.
On November 28, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the U.S., German, and French envoys and accused their embassies and organizations registered in those countries of illegally funding Abzas Media. Reports in Azerbaijani state and pro-government media used materials apparently leaked from authorities’ investigation into Abzas Media to accuse the outlet’s staff of illegally bringing undeclared grants from foreign donor organizations into the country.
Media reports have linked the crackdown on Abzas Media to a decline in Azerbaijani-Western relations amid Azerbaijani claims of Western pro-Armenian bias following Azerbaijan’s military recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh in September. An anti-Western campaign in Azerbaijani state media initiated days before the first Abzas Media arrests highlighted donor organizations’ funding of civil society and independent media, accusing them of creating networks of Western “agents” in Azerbaijan and advocating a hunt for “spies.”
Absalamova and her colleagues deny the charges, calling them retaliation for the outlet’s anticorruption investigations into senior state officials. If found guilty, they face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
Separately, a court on Monday ordered Aziz Orujov, director of the popular independent online broadcast Kanal 13, to be detained for three months pending investigation into illegal construction charges that his lawyer believes are retaliatory.
]]>The Sabail District Court in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, on Tuesday ordered that Orujov be held in pre-trial detention for three months after police arrested the journalist on Monday and searched his home, office, and vehicle, according to news reports and Orujov’s lawyer, Bahruz Bayramov, who spoke to CPJ.
If found guilty, he faces up to three years in prison under Article 188.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
Bayramov told CPJ that Orujov had been building a home for himself on a plot of land that he had purchased. While the land was not officially registered to Orujov, Bayramov said that this was also the case for thousands of other homes in Baku, and that he was not aware of anyone else being arrested for the offense. Instead, the charges were in retaliation for Orujov’s journalism, according to the lawyer.
The independent online broadcaster Kanal 13, which has more than 2 million subscribers on its YouTube channels, regularly covers sensitive topics such as demonstrations and human rights violations and gives space to opposition views, Alasgar Mammadli, founder of Media Rights Group, which advocates for press freedom in Azerbaijan, told CPJ.
“Hot on the heels of last week’s arrest of three journalists and media workers at the anti-corruption outlet Abzas Media, Azerbaijani authorities appear to be targeting yet another critical online news platform with the arrest of Aziz Orujov,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Orujov, drop the charges against him, and end their crackdown on the independent press.”
Orujov’s wife, Lamiya Orujova, told CPJ that her husband was arrested “like a terrorist,” by eight police officers, seven of whom were wearing masks. Police confiscated documents and USB sticks from Kanal 13’s office, and also took two laptops, a cell phone, documents, and bank cards from their home, she said.
Bayramov told CPJ that there was no legal basis under the illegal construction charges for conducting the searches and ordering Orujov’s pretrial detention.
Mammadli told regional outlet Caucasian Knot that there were around 500,000 illegally built homes in and around Baku, and that authorities’ decision to target the head of a popular and critical media platform on these grounds heralded “a new wave in the witch hunt against journalists” in Azerbaijan.
On November 21, a court detained Abzas Media’s director Ulvi Hasanli and chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi for four months on charges of conspiring to bring money into the country unlawfully. Mahammad Kekalov, an assistant to Hasanli, was later ordered detained for the same period. On Tuesday, Azerbaijani authorities summoned the U.S., German, and French envoys and accused their embassies and organizations registered in those countries of unlawfully funding Abzas Media.
It is not the first time that Orujov has been jailed. In 2017, authorities sentenced him to six years in prison on charges of illegal entrepreneurship and abuse of power, which was widely viewed as retaliation for his journalism, and later released him on probation in 2018.
On December 8, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Fazil Guliyev, told CPJ by email that Orujov was summoned by police on November 27, and that information that he was arrested by eight police officers, most of them masked, “does not reflect the truth.”
Guliyev said Azerbaijani legislation allows a court to order up to three months’ pretrial detention for illegal construction offenses, and that this year to date 34 individuals besides Orujov have been criminally prosecuted on the same charges. “The media in our country is free, and no one, including journalists … can be prosecuted for exercising their freedom of expression and opinion,” the deputy minister added.
Editor’s note: This text has been updated in the final two paragraphs with comment from the deputy minister of internal affairs and in the third paragraph to correct the number of the Article cited.
]]>A district court in the capital of Baku on Tuesday ordered that Hasanli and Vagifgizi remain in custody for four months on charges of conspiring to bring money into the country unlawfully, Abzas Media reported. If found guilty, they face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
Individuals in plainclothes who did not identify themselves took Kekalov from his home in Baku on Monday along with his laptop and cell phone, according to news reports and a source familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. As of Tuesday evening, Kekalov’s whereabouts remained unknown.
“The remand terms handed to Ulvi Hasanli and Sevinj Vagifgizi only serve to underline authorities’ real goal, which is to silence Abzas Media’s bold anti-corruption reporting,” said CPJ Advocacy and Communications Director Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Vagifgizi and Hasanli immediately, provide information on Mahammad Kekalov’s whereabouts, and allow Abzas Media to continue its vital public interest reporting.”
Police arrested Hasanli on Monday, November 20, raided his apartment, and searched the Baku office of independent investigative website Abzas Media, where they said they found 40,000 Euros (US$43,770). Officers took a computer, cell phone, iWatch, and hard disk from the apartment and confiscated a microphone and hard disk from the office, Zibeyda Sadygova, the journalist’s lawyer, told CPJ.
Police arrested Vagifgizi at Baku airport at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday as she returned from a work trip abroad and searched her home.
Hasanli and Vagifgizi have denied the charges, calling them retaliation for Abzas Media’s investigations into alleged corruption by relatives of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and state officials. Hasanli said he believes police planted the money in order to fabricate a case, according to a video posted by Abzas Media.
Abzas Media is one of a handful of independent outlets that remain in the country following a series of raids, arrests, and criminal investigations against independent media and press freedom groups since 2014.
In 2021, Vagifgizi was one of several Azerbaijani journalists whose phones were found to be compromised by Pegasus, spyware produced by the Israeli company NSO Group. Hasanli’s name was also on a leaked list of individuals targeted with Pegasus, according to the global investigative network Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
On November 30, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Vilayat Eyvazov, told CPJ by email that claims that charges against Hasanli, Vagifgizi, and Kekalov were related to their work were “completely groundless.” Eyvazov said that the three had smuggled “a large amount of foreign currency” across Azerbaijan’s state border “outside of customs control or secretly and without declaring it,” and that the 40,000 euros (US$43,601) allegedly found in Abzas Media’s office was “a part of” the smuggled currency.
Editor’s note: Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed Kekalov’s arrest on November 23. This text has been updated in the 10th paragraph with comment from the minister.
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