Image by Arzu Geybullayeva, via CanvaPro
On February 28, independent Azerbaijani journalist Fatima Movlamli was detained as part of an ongoing investigation against an independent media outlet Meydan TV. Movlamli is the ninth woman journalist to face arrest in Azerbaijan in recent months.
Since November 2023, Azerbaijani authorities have launched a new wave of crackdowns targeting journalists, political activists, and human rights defenders en masse. In total, some twenty journalists have been placed behind bars, either awaiting trial, sentenced, or transferred under house arrest. Local human rights watchdogs say arrests and intimidation are politically motivated and report the list of political prisoners has reached 357 people. The targeted civil society members deny any wrongdoing and insist they are being persecuted for their work.
Movlamli, 24, is a freelance journalist who has worked for various local independent media. In 2018 Movlamli was kidnapped and unreachable for five days. She was forced to give her phone to her captors, whom Movlamli assumed were government security services employees. A year later, Movlamli found herself at the center of a targeted online harassment campaign when intimate videos of her (likely taken from her device during her captivity) were leaked online. In an interview with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Movlamli, recalling that experience, said she felt ashamed and even considered suicide:
“At an age when I didn't fully realize I was a woman, I was ashamed that I had a female body and that people saw it naked.”
The harassment did not just stop there. In 2020, Movlamli's personal Facebook account was hacked. A year later, Movmali found her intimate videos shared in a Telegram group, along with similar content targetting several other women activists. The same year, the journalist discovered she was on the list of individuals targeted with Pegasus spyware, an Israeli spyware that has been used to harass and spy on journalists, politicians, activists, and researchers around the world.
After her arrest, Movlamli was sentenced to one month and nine days in pretrial detention on baseless smuggling charges. The same charges have been leveled against eight other women journalists, including Sevinj Vagifgizi (36), Nargiz Absalamova (27), Elnara Gasimova (29) from Abzas Media; Aynur Elgunash (50), Aytaj Ahmadova (32), Aysel Umudova (33), and Khayala Aghayeva, (28) from Meydan TV; and Shahnaz Beylergizi (51) from Toplum TV.
Often, these women journalists were among those covering the annual March 8, also known as International Women's Day, campaigns organized in the capital, Baku. This year, they won't be in attendance or covering the protests.
With the speed of the ongoing crackdown and sweeping new changes affecting other media platforms, soon there may only be state media left in Azerbaijan. Many national independent and opposition media have been forced into exile while their journalists face political persecution. In February 2025, Azerbaijan suspended operations of Azerbaijan services for BBC, Voice of America, Rossiya Segodnya (Sputnik), and Bloomberg.
Police also arrested journalists Shamshad Aghayev and Nurlan Libre, who, like other previously arrested journalists, face smuggling charges and are now under investigation as part of the ongoing Meydan TV case.
Several journalists and bloggers have already been sentenced. Among them is blogger Arzu Sayadoghlu Mammadov, who received a seven-year sentence; journalist and director of an online television channel Kanal 13, Aziz Orucov, who was sentenced to two years; and journalist and director of Kanal 11 online television Teymur Karimov who will be imprisoned for eight years.
But while authorities are silencing critical voices at home, they are footing the bill for international influencers to travel to Azerbaijan for a government public relations campaign. As such, on February 13, 2025, the State Tourism Agency announced four tenders in a total amount of AZN 4.190 million (USD 2.4 million) that will cover three continents and bring a total of 212 people from nine countries to Azerbaijan. The influencers include journalists, travel bloggers, and representatives of travel agencies. The goal is to have high-profile personalities share positive experiences and information about Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan ranked in 164th place among 180 countries rated in Reporters Without Borders 2024 Press Freedom Index.
For some of the arrested women journalists, this is going to be their second International Women's Day in prison. Last year, speaking at the protest, journalist and feminist Aytac Taptiq said, “we declare our solidarity with journalists Sevinc Vagifgizi, Nargiz Absalamova, Elnara Gasimova, who were doing their job like professionals and arrested for this very reason.” This year, Taptiq won't be at the protest, as she is one of the women journalists unjustly silenced on bogus smuggling charges.
