A second journalist from the independent Abzas Media news website has been detained by Azerbaijani authorities in as many days in what rights groups say are retaliatory moves for the outlet's "pioneering journalism" to root out corruption.
Abzas Media said on November 21 that its chief editor, Sevinc Vaqifqizi, was detained at the Baku airport upon her arrival in Azerbaijan overnight and that police searched her apartment and office as well.
A day earlier, the director of Abzas Media, Ulvi Hasanli, was placed in custody under similar circumstances.
Police detained Hasanli near his apartment early on November 20 and raided his house and the offices of Abzas Media, where they claimed to find 40,000 euros ($43,800) in cash, which Hasanli insists he had never seen before.
Abzas Media said the cash the police claim they found in its offices most likely had been planted to legally justify charges against Hasanli and the media outlet.
Ulvi Hasanli
“The raid on the offices of Abzas Media, one of the few domestic Azerbaijani media outlets that still dares to investigate official corruption, and the arrest of its director Ulvi Hasanli, appear to be in retaliation for the outlet’s pioneering journalism,” CPJ Advocacy and Communications Director Gypsy Guillen Kaiser said.
“Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Hasanli and end their harassment of Abzas Media.”
Presient Ilham Aliyev has ruled the oil-producing former Soviet republic with an iron fist since shortly before his father, Heydar Aliyev, died in 2003 after a decade in power.
The president has repeatedly rejected criticism from rights groups and Western governments that accuse him of jailing his opponents on trumped-up accusations and abusing power to stifle dissent.
Azerbaijan ranked 151th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2023 World Press Freedom Index.
Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International’s South Caucasus researcher, said that Hasanli "has bravely exposed allegations of high-level corruption in Azerbaijan and covered critical issues of public interest."
“We are deeply concerned about the reports that Ulvi Hasanli was beaten or otherwise ill-treated in detention.... The arrest of Ulvi Hasanli fits into a pattern of critics being arrested by the authorities to stifle their dissent," Nozadze said.
Separately on November 20, police forcibly took away noted rights activist Mohammad Kekalov from his apartment in Baku on unspecified charges. Kekalov's relatives say the activist has been held incommunicado since his detainment.