Azerbaijan

On 8 May, freelance journalist Ayten Mammadova was threatened by a knife-wielding man in the elevator of her apartment block. The man demanded that she stop writing about a trial she was covering, and warned that if she didn’t he would ‘deal’ with her daughter.

Zaur Gambarov was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on 28 February over an altercation at a branch of the social security department, where he had gone on 4 May 2020 to investigate a complaint.

Geybulla has been unjustly accused of betraying her country for taking a measured and journalistic stance in the face of the recent armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

In June 2019 Aslanov, his wife and daughter were detained at a border crossing as they attempted to enter Iran for a friend’s wedding. Although his wife and daughter were later released, Aslanov was charged with high treason for allegedly selling state secrets to Iran.

Press groups call on both states to abide by their obligations under International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to protect journalists in situations of conflict and tension.

The recently amended martial law prohibits the publication of reports criticising the actions of the government, officials and local bodies. It also gives increased power to the police to hand out fines, freeze assets and request removal of content from media outlets.

Exiled journalists from Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Yemen speak to ICORN about the challenges of reporting the truth when governments are using the pandemic to justify surveillance and impose harder restrictions on the press.

IRFS calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to end their crackdown on critics under the guise of protecting public safety, and for approximately 120 political prisoners to be released in order to protect their health.

In May 2017, Mukhtarli was abducted in Georgia and transported to Azerbaijan, where he was sentenced to six years in prison on dubious charges in 2018. A judge ordered his early release on 17 March 2020.

At least 18 journalists were obstructed and/or physically attacked in the course of their reporting in Baku after Azerbaijan’s snap parliamentary elections on 9 February. Khadija Ismayilova was one of those who were beaten and arrested.

In 2019, over 50 imprisoned human rights defenders, journalists, opposition activists and religious believers were released, but at least 30 others remained wrongfully imprisoned, while authorities regularly targeted other dissenting voices.

Several women were detained at a protest against femicide in Azerbaijan. At a separate demonstration calling for fair elections and economic justice, police detained and beat protesters; prominent opposition leaders were among those arrested.

Mukhtarli was sentenced to six years in prison on an absurd charge after being abducted and brought back by force from neighbouring Georgia in May 2017. His hunger strike is in protest against the arbitrary treatment that both he and his lawyer are receiving from the prison authorities.

Sentenced to seven and a half years in jail on trumped up charges, Ismayilova was released on probation after international protests; it is a condition of her probation that she is forbidden to travel or work.

Human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her historian husband, Arif, are at threat of being extradited to Azerbaijan to face trial on trumped up charges of treason, tax evasion and fraud. Both had spent time in prison, suffered acute health problems and were eventually granted political asylum in the Netherlands, yet an appeals court in Baku is demanding that they return to be questioned by the court in person.

Kidnapped in Georgia in 2017 and transported back to Azerbaijan, Mukhtarli was convicted on dubious charges and sentenced to six years in prison.