CPJ has called on Azerbaijani authorities to release journalists
Arrests of journalists in Azerbaijan
The respected international organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists, has criticized the arrest of staff members from Toplum TV and other media in Azerbaijan. The organization has questioned the Azerbaijani authorities and urged them to release all journalists currently under arrest.
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The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement on March 11 regarding the detentions and arrests of Toplum TV staff.
“On March 6, around 1:30 pm, dozens of plainclothes police officers stormed into the Toplum TV office in the capital Baku, confiscated equipment and phones from all present employees, and took at least ten of them to the city police department. Toplum TV’s chief editor, Khadija Ismayilova, was informed by the police that she should also be prepared to be called in for questioning,” the CPJ statement said.
By midnight on March 6, all journalists except video editor Mushvig Jabbar, reporter Farid Ismayilov, and social media manager Elmir Abbasov were released.
On March 8, plainclothes police detained the founder of Toplum TV and the Media Rights Group, Alesker Mamedli, as he was leaving a clinic where he had been undergoing tests to confirm or rule out a cancer diagnosis.
On March 9, after the police claimed to have found €7,300 (US$7,970) in Mamedli’s apartment, the Khatai district сourt arrested him for four months.
Journalists denied the accusations of money smuggling, punishable under Article 206.3.2 of the Azerbaijan Criminal Code with up to eight years in prison, stating that the police had planted the money in their apartment.
“The police raid on Toplum TV and the arrest of journalists, following similar attacks on Abzas Media and Kanal-13, indicate that the Azerbaijani authorities intend to eradicate the last remnants of independent press in the country. Reports that the police detained the media’s founder Alesker Mamedli while he was undergoing cancer treatment are particularly outrageous,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.
“The Azerbaijani authorities must immediately release Mamedli and Jabbar, drop all charges against the staff of Toplum TV, and stop the repression against independent media for their reporting,” she added.
Toplum TV is one of the last significant independent media outlets in Azerbaijan, covering political topics, investigations of corruption among officials, and allegations of voting irregularities during the February presidential elections.
This is the third independent news outlet in Azerbaijan in recent months whose staff have been charged with currency smuggling, amid deteriorating relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
Since November, six employees of the independent Abzas Media, known for its anti-corruption investigations, and two journalists from the independent internet television Kanal 13, have been detained. This came after authorities accused them of illegally importing money from Western donors into Azerbaijan, according to a CPJ statement.
The Azerbaijani authorities have not publicly accused Toplum TV of illegal Western funding. However, the pro-government agency APA reported that Toplum TV “illegally received half a million dollars from Western donors to incite unrest.”
Soon after the police raid, Toplum TV’s Instagram account was deleted, and its YouTube channel was renamed and all its content removed, said chief editor Khadija Ismayilova.
In her view, this “demonstrates the true intention of the authorities,” which is “to silence any platform that contains criticism.”
The Toplum TV office has been sealed by the police, and the confiscated equipment and journalists’ phones have not yet been returned, she said, describing the charges against Toplum staff as “absolutely absurd.”
The statement concludes by saying that CPJ’s email to Azerbaijani authorities requesting a comment on the case against Toplum TV staff remains unanswered.
