Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova sentenced to 7,5 years in prison
Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to 7,5 years in prison, the Radio Liberty reports.
September 1, the Baku court found Ismayilova guilty of tax evasion, illegal business activity, and abuse of power.
Ismayilova, who has reported extensively on the financial dealings of long-ruling President Ilham Aliyev and members of his family, has strongly denied the charges and called the trial a “scam” meant to silence her work.
The verdict was immediately condemned by the journalists, human rights activists, media freedom organizations, and the Western officials.
Mark Toner, the deputy spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, said the United States is “deeply troubled” by the sentence handed to Ismayilova, since her case is “another example in a broad pattern of increasing restrictions on human rights in Azerbaijan, including curtailing the freedom of the press.”
The office of Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland, meanwhile, expressed concerns “about the systemic deficiencies in the Azerbaijani judicial system and the worrying trend of increasing cases against human rights defenders and journalists, which has a chilling effect on freedom of expression in the country.”
The verdict and sentence were also strongly condemned by the OSCE’s media freedom representative, Dunja Mijatovic, and by the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Nils Muiznieks.
As Krym.Realii (Crimea. Realities) media outlet reports, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also condemned the verdict and sentence, saying that it “has determined the charges to be retaliation for Ismayilova’s reporting on corruption in the Azerbaijani government.” Nina Ognianova, the coordinator for the media rights group’s Europe and Central Asia Program, said, “Ismayilova’s trial has been a farce, yet the consequences for her, and for all Azerbaijani journalists, are gravely serious.”
As a reminder, Ismayilova was jailed since her arrest in December.
Several journalists and rights activists in Azerbaijan also were sentenced to prison terms in 2014 on charges that include tax evasion, illegal business activity, and hooliganism.
Their cases are widely seen as part of a government-led crackdown on dissent in the oil-producing former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus, which Aliyev has ruled since he succeeded his father as president in 2003.
