Azerbaijani pro-government media attacks pro-democracy activist Mammadli

Report, an Azerbaijani pro-government media outlet, has accused imprisoned pro-democracy activist and election monitor Anar Mammadli of promising to sabotage the 2024 presidential elections. On Wednesday, Mammadli dismissed the allegations as being ‘nonsense and a figment of the imagination’.

Report’s article, titled ‘Why is it dangerous to cooperate with USAID?’, was published on 18 February.

The article alleged that Mammadli had ‘promised to sabotage the presidential elections in exchange for grant funds received from [the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, and the United States Agency for International Development] to implement grant projects illegally’.

Report added that Mammadli ‘planned to create fictitious scenes of electoral process violations, film, and distribute videos of these scenes, and thereby cast doubt on the democratic nature of the elections’.

‘For this purpose, it was decided to organise and train a team of 500 election observers’, they wrote.

The February 2024 snap presidential elections gave President Ilham Aliyev 92% of the vote. The elections, which gave Aliyev his fifth turn as president after succeeding his father, Heydar Aliyev, in 2003, were accompanied by widespread reports of electoral fraud, with independent media and activists posting footage online appearing to show ballot box stuffing, carousels, and other violations.

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Mammadli is the chair of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre. He was arrested in April 2024 on charges of smuggling in the case against independent media outlet Abzas Media.

Azerbaijan detains pro-democracy activist Anar Mammadli in AbzasMedia case

Azerbaijani police have arrested prominent pro-democracy activist Anar Mammadli as part of Azerbaijan’s crackdown on independent media outlet AbzasMedia. Mammadli, the head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, had his home raided by the police and was detained on Monday on cha…

OC MediaAytan Farhadova

Abzas Media was raided by the authorities in Azerbaijan in November 2023, marking the beginning of a new crackdown on independent media in the country.

Mammadli has authored several reports critical of elections held in Azerbaijan throughout the years.

In the February article, Report went on to cite the US State Department’s appeal to the government for Mammadli’s release as proof of his plans to ‘sabotage’ the elections.

‘The continuation of the investigation process means that the illegal actions of USAID, NED, and NDI will also be revealed. This factor also worried the head of the State Department’, wrote the outlet.

In his response on Wednesday, Mammadli said that he had cooperated with USAID since 2013, and has, between 2016–2023, worked as a consultant, trainer, and analyst in various regional projects. He noted that ‘within the framework of his professional activities, he only contributed to the development of human rights and civil society’.

‘Such articles were deliberately disseminated by the investigation. The goal here is to influence public opinion, make my activities as a human rights defender illegal and cast a shadow on the work of human rights defenders,’ Mammadli concluded.

Pro-government media in Azerbaijani regularly publish pieces attacking detained journalists and pro-democracy figures.

Recently, Shamshad Aghayev (Agha), a journalist detained as part of the case against Meydan TV, accused APA, another pro-government media outlet, of spreading lies about the investigation against him with ‘sensationalist articles’.

‘Going even further, they also made me the new head of Meydan TV. Such absurd and ridiculous statements can only be fabricated in Azerbaijan’, wrote Agha in a letter he penned whilst in detention.

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.

OC MediaAytan Farhadova