Images of the Abzas Media journalists used with permission. Feature image of them against the backdrop of the Abzas logo created by Arzu Geybullayeva, using Canva Pro.
On June 20, the Baku Court for Grave Crimes delivered sentences against key members of the independent news outlet – and Global Voices’ content partner – Abzas Media, targeting journalists who have reported on corruption, social injustice and the daily problems of Azerbaijani citizens.
Abzas team members, plus two of the outlet's contributors, all of whom have been in pre trial detention since November 2023, received multi-year prison terms.
Nine-year sentences were passed down to Director Ulvi Hasanli and Editor-in-Chief Sevinc Vagifgizi, as well as to Hafiz Babali, an independent investigative reporter, and Farid Mehralızadeh, an independent economist. Journalists Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova both received eight-year terms, while Deputy Director Mahammad Kekalov was slapped with a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.
The story of the arrests
In November 2023, the Azerbaijani state targeted Abzas Media and arrested its journalists on bogus corruption charges. Known for its fearless corruption investigations – covering everything from government-linked real estate deals to graft tied to the presidential family – the outlet was abruptly hit when authorities raided its office, alleging smuggling charges under Article 206.3.2 of the country's Criminal Code.
The journalists’ arrests took place just months ahead of the snap presidential election scheduled for February 7, in which the incumbent, Ilham Aliyev, secured another seven-year term, given a near-total absence of legal political opposition.
In the months following the arrests, there was international condemnation as well as legal attempts to have them released under house arrest, a request that was refused.
During their detention, Vagifgizi, Absalamova, and Gasimova reported having to endure various forms of mistreatment, including being physically assaulted by prison staff. They also told their relatives and lawyers of threats, insults, and beatings inside the detention center – not only against them, but against other inmates too.
When no measures were taken to investigate the abuse, the Abzas Media team announced they would no longer attend the hearings.
By the summer of 2024, the state prosecutor had escalated the charges to include illegal business operations, money laundering, and tax evasion, which could carry prison sentences of up to 12 years.
The international community vs. Azerbaijan’s claims
Local and global human rights and press freedom organizations have condemned both the arrests and the recent sentencing as politically-driven reprisals against courageous investigative reporting.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijani authorities maintained their external narrative: these imprisonments were lawful punishments for criminal behavior, not censorship of dissent. The most notorious of these statements came when President Ilham Aliyev, in responding to questioning during a press conference in Germany ahead of COP29, replied that some media representatives “who illegally receive funding from abroad” were arrested within the framework of the law, and that there was “no censorship” in Azerbaijan.
In keeping with the official narrative since the start of the arrests, government-aligned media have portrayed all arrested journalists, civic activists, and rights defenders as criminals in their reports.
Individual statements, one message
On June 20, 2025, the journalists’ last court hearing, each of them delivered powerful statements. Saying he had “no regrets about being arrested,” Hasanli lamented the loss of “freedom in the name of free speech and independent journalism”:
Ilham Aliyev may be able to take away our physical freedom, but he cannot take away our thoughts, our freedom of expression, or our voice. Whenever we write about an issue, we feel a deep sense of purpose. It gives us moral satisfaction and the belief that we may have played a small role in solving a larger problem. For that, we are grateful to our profession.
Editor-in-Chief Vagifgizi concurred with his director, saying:
The investigation files claim the operation against the Abzas Media team was launched based on information from a ‘reliable source.’ But who is that ‘reliable source’? The investigative authorities and the court have refused to tell us. But we know. That ‘reliable source’ is President Ilham Aliyev – because the corruption stories we investigated reached him and his inner circle.
Journalist Mahammad Kekalov added:
Today, I’m gifting George Orwell’s “1984” to the judges and state prosecutors. Don’t worry – it wasn’t smuggled in. My brother bought it legally. Read it, and you’ll see exactly what we’re living through. As for my ‘final words’ — final words come only with death. These are not mine yet.
Absalamova, his colleague, was reduced to laughter:
Judge Rasim Sadikhov once said during a hearing, ‘Laugh all you want – we’ll see who laughs last.’ Well, today is the end, and yet we’re still laughing. That’s all one can do when faced with judges like this. At this age, they can't even speak the truth, and when young people like us do, they break out in a cold sweat. Watching them fall apart – it makes us laugh.
Like a true journalist, Gasimova added:
The orders you receive are treated like commandments, and instead of choosing independence, you submit to illegality. That makes you no different from those who give the orders. So don’t say ‘I was just following orders’ and try to soothe your conscience. That excuse doesn’t wash.
Radio Free Europe contributor and economist Farid Mehralizade, meanwhile, was resolute:
They could sentence us to life in prison if they want. They could change the criminal code and bring back the death penalty – send us to the gallows. Because in countries where the rule of law and judicial independence mean nothing, trials are just another part of an authoritarian government’s fake smile. But truth can’t be partial. Truth is whole – and the truth is that I have committed no crime. Sooner or later, we will be acquitted by law.
After the accused said their piece, the judges left the courtroom to deliberate. When they returned and read the verdict, all the defendants turned their backs to the judges and held up posters depicting the corruption investigations into President Ilham Aliyev’s family members.
As the verdict was read, the group recited a poem by Azerbaijani writer Ali bey Huseynzade:
On the tip of my tongue
Lies the vast truth.
They neither let me speak,
Nor did they cut out my tongue.Do you know, oh fools,
What you've done to this land?
You let no one rest,
You let no one wake.My pen failed to awaken
This Turk and the stranger.
They didn’t let me write,
Nor did they break my pen.
