Azerbaijan’s Media Crackdown
Baku court erects new fence and prohibits journalists from photographing defendants
This is just the latest attempt to block independent media from covering Azerbaijan’s ongoing media crackdown.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani court releases journalist Shahnaz Baylargizi to house arrest and convicts Kanal 13’s Aziz Orujov
Baku’s Khatai District Court has decided to release detained Toplum TV journalist Shahnaz Baylargizi to house arrest while sentencing another journalist, Aziz Orujov of Kanal 13, to two years in prison.
On Tuesday, the Khatai District Court decided to place Baylargizi under house arrest, having previously remanded her to three months and 15 days of pre-trial detention on charges of smuggling as part of the case against Toplum TV.
Baylargizi was detained on 5 February alongside another journalist, Meydan TV’s Shamshad Agha.
Another journalist arrested as Azerbaijan’s media crackdown continues
Journalist Shamshad Aghayev was detained on charges of smuggling as part of the ongoing Meydan TV case.
Aytan Farhadova
On 8 February, the pro-government Human Rights Organisations Monitoring Group appealed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva for Baylargizi’s release, citing her health condition. Baylarigizi suffers from diabetes and hypertension.
She was an anchor on Toplum TV, which was raided in March 2024 as part of an ongoing crackdown on independent media in Azerbaijan.
Orujov, whose sentence was extended, is the chair of Kanal 13. He was arrested in November 2023 on charges of building a house without a permit. Having been detained since, he is expected to finish his sentence by the end of the year.
In December 2023, he was additionally charged with smuggling — charges that were dropped shortly after.
Azerbaijan arrests founder of Kanal 13 a week after AbzasMedia raid
Azerbaijani police have arrested the founder and director of the independent online TV channel Kanal 13, a week after the authorities raided the offices of AbzasMedia and arrested its management. Aziz Orujov was detained in Baku on Monday. On Tuesday, a court remanded him into three months of pre-…
I
According to Meydan TV, Orujov’s indictment indicates that he was building a house in Baku’s Sabail District without permission from the authorities. He plead not guilty, calling the charge pressed against him absurd.
‘There are up to 500,000 houses in Baku and the surrounding area built without permission, no one has been arrested like me’, he said in court. ‘I was punished for the activities of Kanal 13’.
‘My son is not a smuggler’: how Azerbaijan detains critics
Journalists and activists arrested in Azerbaijan’s latest crackdown on independent media have been accused of smuggling foreign currency, against a backdrop of increasingly tight constraints on foreign funding. But conversations with their families suggest a picture of low incomes and struggles to m…
Aytan Farhadova
Related Articles
Freedom of the Press
OC Media faces closure after Trump–Musk aid cuts hit $250,000 in funding
The cuts to NED followed the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID, which also impacted OC Media.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijani labour activist sentenced to three years in prison on drug charges
Mohyaddin Orujov is the fourth member of the Workers Table Unions Confederation (WTUC) to be sentenced to prison.
Azerbaijan
Detained Azerbaijani researcher Bahruz Samadov ‘forced’ to end hunger strike
Samadov has cited his mistreatment in detention and the authorities denying him medical care.
