"Veteran journalist Shahnaz Baylargizi's arrest underscores how Azerbaijani authorities are exploiting allegations of Western funding to silence leading independent voices" - CPJ
This statement was originally published on cpj.org on 10 February 2025.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a February 6 Azerbaijani court decision remanding Toplum TV presenter Shahnaz Baylargizi to 3.5 months in pretrial detention over foreign funding allegations and calls for her immediate release.
“Veteran journalist Shahnaz Baylargizi’s arrest underscores how Azerbaijani authorities are exploiting allegations of Western funding to silence leading independent voices,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Baylargizi suffers from acute health challenges, and each day she unjustly spends behind bars jeopardizes her life. Azerbaijani authorities must immediately release her along with all other unjustly jailed journalists.”
Police arrested Baylargizi, whose legal name is Shahnaz Huseynova, on February 5 in the capital, Baku, and confiscated cells phones and a laptop from her home, according to reports.
The journalist’s lawyer, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, told media that she was charged with the same economic crimes – including currency smuggling, tax evasion, and money laundering – brought against four other Toplum TV journalists following a March 2024 raid on the outlet’s office over alleged funding from major donor organizations based in the West.
If convicted, Baylargizi faces up to 12 years in prison.
Police called an ambulance for Baylargizi, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, after her blood pressure spiked during her arrest, her lawyer said. Reports stated that she has since been placed under medical observation in the detention center.
Baylargizi is among at least 23 journalists and media workers currently jailed in Azerbaijan in retaliation for their work. Most have been jailed over allegedly receiving Western funding amid a vast crackdown on dissenting voices since late 2023 and a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
CPJ’s annual prison census found that Azerbaijan was among the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024.
CPJ’s email requesting comment to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which oversees the police, did not receive a reply.
