Azerbaijan’s crackdown on independent media continues with the arrest of seven of Meydan TV’s journalists and freelancers on charges of smuggling and supporting Armenia.
The campaign against Meydan TV began on 6 December with the arrest of journalist Ramin Jabrayilzada, also known as Deko.
According to Jabrayilzada’s lawyer, Nemat Karimov, his client was stopped on his way home from the airport. Police confiscated his funds and claimed he had brought an illicit amount of currency into the country — Jabrayilzada claimed that police had added their own money to his funds in order to reach this amount.
Charges of smuggling or other foreign currency-related crimes have been repeatedly employed against independent journalists or other perceived enemies of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s government.
Aytaj Ahmadova, who writes for Meydan TV under the penname Tapdig, was detained on the same day alongside Kamran Mammadli, an animal rights activist who was with her at the time of their arrest.
Mammadli and Ahmadova were arrested after someone complained about a water leak in the apartment they were in. When they opened the door, police streamed in and detained them.
Mammadli was held for 25 hours in detention and was beaten while in police custody.
‘At the police station, they asked for my phone’s password. When I refused to give it to them, around five or six police officers began beating me, and after that, they electrocuted me. I understood it was meaningless, and I gave them my password,’ Mammadli said.
He emphasised that he does not have any ties to Meydan TV.
Another round of repression against civil society
Much like prior raids on independent media which took place in late 2023, the crackdown on Meydan TV was accompanied by a wave of arrests of civil society activists.
[Read more: Explainer | One year on in Azerbaijan’s crackdown on independent media]
On the same day as the arrest of Jabrailzada and Ahmadova, authorities detained Shahla Ismail, the head of the Women’s Association for Rational Development and a coordinator for the Azerbaijan National Platform of Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership.
According to an anonymous witness testimony relayed by a third-party to OC Media, the police sent an officer masquerading as a courier up to Ismail’s house in order to trick her into opening the door.
‘This courier called her around 14 times and she refused to open the door. In the end, the police used her children’s nanny. The nanny was beaten after police raided her house. They even didn’t allow Shahla to wear a coat or any warm clothes, and she left the house wearing her slippers,’ the witness said.
Ismail, who was awarded the Progress Medal by Aliyev in 2023, was kept in police custody until midnight.
Rana Tahirova, another civil society member, also had her home raided by police, who confiscated a sum of money they claimed was intended for the salaries of Meydan TV staff. Her husband, Ulvi Tahirov, was also detained. At a court hearing, he claimed that the confiscated money belonged to his wife.
Orkhan Mammad, a Meydan TV editor, told OC Media that the raids took place simultaneously throughout Azerbaijan.
Mammad said that one of Meydan TV’s journalists, Aysel Umudova, was detained alongside her friend Elnur Jabbarzada 130 kilometres from Baku. Umudova’s last words to Mammad before her detention were, ‘our girls were detained. I’m not in Baku, this is why I can’t talk’.
The authorities also detained photographer Ahmad Mukhtar in his home as part of the case against Meydan TV, charging him with petty hooliganism and disobeying the police. Mukhtar was sentenced to 20 days of administrative detention.
‘We are working without censorship’
Mammad suggested that Meydan TV is now being targeted for its coverage of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and for its investigations into Aliyev, his family, and other high-ranking officials.
Following the end of the war in 2020, Mammad said that Meydan TV had regularly published news and information about battlefield events before the Ministry of Defence did, and also provided spaces for peacebuilding advocates to share their opinions.
‘Meydan TV never instructed its employees on what to write about, what not to write about; we are working without censorship, and know-how is important to alternative media in Azerbaijan’, Mammad said.
While the outlet’s journalists were held in detention centres this weekend, the pro-government Baku TV aired a report accusing their staff of smuggling, illegal activities, and of maintaining relations with Armenians — a taboo topic in Azerbaijan which could have serious legal ramifications.
Several other pro-government media outlets cited Baku TV’s report, with each outlet adding its own details and allegations. Nonetheless, beneath the surface-level editorial differences, all coverage from pro-government media discussed how Meydan TV characterised the mass exodus of the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population as ‘ethnic cleansing’, and singled out Mammad and Omar Mammadov, a Meydan TV employee based in Berlin, as being primarily involved in covering the topic.
Aren Melikyan, an Armenian journalist whose name was mentioned in the reports, told OC Media that he had never before worked with Mammadov, and had only met him a few times as part of larger groups.
‘That is all. What the Azerbaijani pro-government media published is such a big lie’, Melikyan said.
Agil Layij, one of the lawyers in the Meydan TV case, told media that the accusations against the outlet’s journalists are completely unclear.
‘I’m defending Aysel Umudova’s rights, and whenever she crosses the border, she declares her money, and there is not any basis to claim that she is a smuggler’, Layij said.
‘This is not the first time Meydan TV faced such an attack by the government. Nine years ago, a criminal case against Meydan TV [was opened] and this case has not been closed’, Mammad said. ‘Despite this, we will continue our work. Soon we will publish our new investigative article regarding high-ranking officials and we will not end our work’.
