The wife of detained Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli was reportedly barred from leaving Azerbaijan in order to attend the Vaclav Havel Prize Award ceremony in which Hasanli is a finalist.
The news about the ban was reported by the outlet’s current editor-in-chief Gunel Safarova on Sunday, who said that Hasanli’s wife, Rubaba Guliyeva, was scheduled to fly out to Strasbourg, France to attend the ceremony.
‘Rubaba was scheduled to fly to Strasbourg, France, for the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize ceremony, which will be held on 29 September, and her husband is one of the finalists’, Safarova noted.
The finalists for the award are Hasanli from Azerbaijan, Mzia Amaghlobeli, the imprisoned co-founder of the Georgian independent news outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, and Maksym Butkevich, a Ukrainian journalist, human rights activist, and co-founder of the Zmina Human Rights Centre and Hromadske Radio.
According to Safarova, when Guliyeva tried to leave, border guards told her at passport control that the Interior Ministry had banned her from leaving the country. The reason for the ban was not explained to her.
Later, Guliyeva reported to RFE/RL that she had approached Samir Ismailov, an investigator of the Baku City Police Department, to ask him about the ban.
‘Ismailov told her that he was unaware of the situation and that an investigation would be conducted’, RFE/RL wrote.
Hasanli’s sister, Narmin Hasanova, told OC Media that she sent a letter to all law enforcement agencies and the Public Defender and received responses regarding her travel ban.
Hasanova was barred from leaving the country in November 2023, but only learned of her ban the following year.
‘After my letter, I received a response from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that I was barred from leaving the country because of a criminal investigation into smuggling at the Baku City Police Department, which was launched on 20 November 2023, and is ongoing’, she told OC Media.
Typically, the government does not inform people they have a travel ban imposed on them, and they often only learn about it when they try to leave the country.
Human rights lawyer Fariz Namazli told OC Media that Azerbaijan’s prevention of potential witnesses from leaving the country was unlawful. He cited Azerbaijan’s migration code, which stipulates that in criminal cases, restrictions can be imposed on the suspect or accused, but not on witnesses.
OC Media has reached out to the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry, but has not received a response.
Travel bans are often imposed against journalists, activists, and civil society members who are accused of crimes. In addition, the relatives of detained journalists from the independent media outlets Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Meydan TV have also received travel bans.
It is unclear if the government will lift the travel ban for either the journalists or their families.
Aytan Farhadova
‘Right now, I can’t visit my husband or enter my home in Poland. I couldn't understand or accept this situation, and all I received were replies to my letters stating that I was banned from entering due to a criminal case. And it’s unclear when the ban will be lifted; it's such a depressing and difficult situation’, Hasanova told OC Media.
In June, the court sentenced Abzas Media’s director, Hasanli, editor-in-chief, Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifgizi), and investigative journalist Hafiz Babali to nine years in prison on charges of smuggling foreign currency as a group and money laundering. Journalists Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova were sentenced to eight years, and Mahammad Kekalov, a coordinator at Abzas, was sentenced to seven and a half years of prison. Farid Mehralizada, a journalist at RFE/RL, was also sentenced to nine years. He was detained in June 2024. The journalists have denied all accusations.
Aytan Farhadova
