Journalist Imran Aliyev has allegedly been beaten and tortured by Azerbaijani police after being arrested on charges of smuggling as part of a group. 

Aliyev, the founder of meclis.info, was arrested on Thursday, and remanded to two months of pre-trial detention the following day. Speaking outside court on Friday, Aliyev stated that he had been beaten and tortured with electric shocks to force him to sign documents and confess to the charges.  

Aliyev added that he considers the accusation baseless and fabricated. 

On Wednesday, the Baku Court of Appeal rejected the journalist’s appeal against his detention. 

On the same day, feminist activist Gulnara Mehdiyeva and rights defender Rufat Safarov wrote that Aliyev had been tortured by police again following his appearance in court, according to Aliyev’s relatives. 

The relatives had attended Aliyev’s court session on Wednesday, and told Mehdiyeva that Imran appeared to have been beaten. 

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told Turan that the claims were ‘baseless’. 

Aliyev was detained at Baku’s airport on 18 April, shortly after pro-government outlet Qafqaz.info published an article claiming that Aliyev had been involved in smuggling money alongside journalists from AbzasMedia and Toplum TV. 

Mass arrests of employees of both outlets have taken place as part of Azerbaijan’s most recent media crackdown, which began in November 2023. All detained journalists deny the charges of smuggling, dismissing them as false and politically-motivated. 

Read in Russian on SOVA.News.