English, Nyheter om Azerbajdzjan
Crackdown of independent media in Azerbaijan
In a well-coordinated police raid, three top figures of the independent Azerbaijani media channel AbzasMedia have been arrested. Now, concerns are rising about further arrests in Azerbaijan.
Av Rasmus Canbäck 23 november, 2023
In recent days, Azerbaijani police have conducted raids against Azerbaijani journalists associated with one of the country’s largest independent media outlets, AbzasMedia.
Early on the morning of November 21, reports emerged that Ulvi Hasanli, the editor-in-chief of AbzasMedia, had stopped answering his phone. A few hours later, his lawyer announced that he had been arrested by the police. On the same morning, AbzasMedia journalists showed how they were prevented by the police from reaching their office.
In the following days, Ulvi Hasanli’s assistant Mahammad Kekalov and editor Sevinc Vagifgizi were also arrested. No news has been heard about Kekalov for two days until a senior official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs wrote a comment on Facebook confirming that Kekalov was in custody.
Later Kekalov refused his own lawyer, i favour for a governmental one. The move is seen with suspicion by other activists and journalists.
AbzasMedia is known for investigating corruption and misconduct in Azerbaijan. It is one of the few media outlets that, despite strict media laws, remains independent from the state.
Azerbaijani peace activist and author Samed Shikhi, who is in Baku, connects the arrests of key figures from AbzasMedia to Azerbaijan’s increasingly strained relationship with the Western world.
”The authorities in the country have long had plans to suppress AbzasMedia, but they needed an excuse to do so. After Azerbaijan’s relations with the USA and Europe became more strained, the authorities found an excuse by calling the journalists American spies. When authorities start hunting for spies from a particular state, it is a sign that the relationship has deteriorated. This is often evident from state media reporting,” Samed Shikhi said, who has many friends who have been imprisoned.
Indeed, the U.S.-Azerbaijani relationship has deteriorated in recent weeks. Azerbaijan canceled a foreign minister meeting with Armenia scheduled to take place in the United States, accusing the U.S. of bias in favor of Armenia in peace negotiations. On two other occasions this fall, Azerbaijan also canceled or denied similar EU-led meetings.
A few days before the arrest of the editor-in-chief Ulvi Hasanli, the U.S. Senate finally approved a halt to military aid to Azerbaijan, a controversial issue pushed by politicians in the U.S. Senate for several years.
Simultaneously with the arrests of journalists, a dispute over the presence of the U.S. aid agency, USAID, in Azerbaijan has unfolded.
After Samantha Power, the administrator of USAID, expressed support for Armenia in taking care of Armenian refugees forced to flee from Nagorno-Karabakh, Hikmet Hajiyev, an assistant to the country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, posted a lengthy message on Twitter. In it, he accuses USAID of being ”Azerophobic”, ”Turkophobic”, and a product of ”political corruption.”
He also insinuates that USAID is influenced by Armenians and concludes the post by writing, ”Mask OFF! There is no place for USAID’s operations in Azerbaijan anymore.”
Azerbaijani state media accuses AbzasMedia of being influenced by an ”American grant network”.
Kekalov, Hasanli and Vagifgizi are accused of smuggling cash into the country. A summary court has sentenced them to approximately four months of detention while an investigation is ongoing.
During the police raid on AbzasMedia’s office, the police claim to have found 40,000 euros in cash. AbzasMedia, on the other hand, argues that the police placed the cash in the office.
The amount is similar to what the police claimed to find in the political prisoner Gubad Ibadoghlu’s home in late July.
The Ibadoghlu case garnered significant international attention when he was arrested during a visit to Azerbaijan. The EU Parliament passed an urgent resolution condemning Azerbaijan, and Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience.
Since his arrest, he has been denied necessary medical care, and the International Red Cross Committee, according to his family, is not allowed to visit him in prison.
Human rights lawyer Zhala Bayramova, daughter of Gubad Ibadoghlu, says there are several similarities between her father’s arrest and AbzasMedia’s.
“You might think it’s the same author who wrote both stories. What sets them apart is that the police claimed to find $40,000 in cash in my father’s home. At AbzasMedia, it happens to be euros. The articles, written in state media, are also very similar. Both contain money from abroad. My father is said to have brought the money from the UK, and in AbzasMedia’s case, it is said that Kekalov brought it from Brussels”, Zhala Bayramova said.
It is a delicate detail that Mahammad Kekalov had just returned from a conference in Brussels the day before the arrest. The EU-funded network for the development of civil society in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) had just held a conference where Kekalov was an observer.
The 22-year-old journalist and disability activist is a frequent guest at similar events. Among Western embassies in Baku, he is a frequent guest and speaker.
Despite this, at the time of writing, no Western embassies have commented on the arrest, prompting pro-democracy Azerbaijanis to react. However, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, Matthew Miller, said that the arrest of journalists at AbzasMedia is ”deeply concerning.”
Several international organizations, such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists, have reacted.
The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, which organized the conference in Brussels and of which Gubad Ibadoghlu is one of the initiators, has made a longer statement. The sequence of events is referred to as an ”ongoing breakdown” of civil society.
Since the summer, the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan has rapidly increased. In September of last year, the Azerbaijani organization Institute for Peace and Democracy, based in the Netherlands, reported 99 political prisoners in Azerbaijan. In October 2023, the number increased to 235.
There are now rumors that Azerbaijani authorities are planning mass arrests in the coming months. These arrests are said to be particularly targeted at feminist networks and the LGBTQ community. In the past year, feminist networks in Azerbaijan have been active in commenting on and condemning the Azerbaijani state for its actions against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and activists in Azerbaijan..
Zhala Bayramova believes that the international community needs to react to what is happening in Azerbaijan. ”Create noise and knock on all possible doors. The individuals from AbzasMedia, especially Kekalov, have had connections with many international organizations and embassies. These diplomats are well aware of what is happening”, Zhala Bayramova said.
She continues to argue that the international community needs to take a stand against Azerbaijan.
”The Azerbaijani government can only be stopped if the world community ceases its trade with the country and stops international events like Formula 1. It’s a shame that companies and organizations do business with Azerbaijan under these conditions. The more money and affirmation the regime gets, the more people will be oppressed in the country”, Zhala Bayramova concluded.
Blankspot seeks the USAID for a comment.
Toppbild: Sevinc Vaqifqizi (left), Ulvi Hasanli (middle) och Mahammad Kekalov (right).
