Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who has written numerous hard-hitting stories on corruption in Azerbaijan, was today sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by the Azerbaijani authorities.
Ismayilova
insists she is being imprisoned for her investigative work and that the charges
lodged against her are fabricated, an assessment backed by civil society groups
and media freedom organizations.
Her
journalism for Kyiv Post partner Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other press outlets, included
major exposes of graft and improper business links of those in the close circle
of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, including his family members.
Aliyev
has increasingly moved to silence his political opposition, as seen in the
recent case of husband-and-wife activists Leyla and Arif Yunus, who earlier
this month were sentenced to eight-and-a-half and seven years,
respectively.
Throughout
Ismayilova’s trial, the court restricted the presence of international
observers and journalists, and limited her access to her lawyers. On Aug. 31, the judge at the request of prosecutor interrupted her final statement, after Ismayilova mentioned Aliyev.
Acquitted
of the initial charge of incitement to attempt suicide, Ismayilova
was convicted of embezzlement, tax evasion and running an illegal business at
the RFE/RL bureau – charges she has called ridiculous.
“This
case was a travesty. It has more in common with the Stalin show trials
than modern justice,” says Drew Sullivan, editor of OCCRP. “It appears
Khadija was convicted politically and not criminally for her reporting.”
OCCRP
joins media freedom and human rights organizations worldwide to demand
Ismayilova’s immediate release. Organizations from Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights have noted she is a political prisoner
and her incarceration cannot be tolerated.
This
coalition urgently calls on foreign governments, the European Parliament, and
international organizations to condemn Ismayilova’s bogus trial, which offends
the principles of press freedom and the observance of human rights not only in
Azerbaijan but any country and organization with which Azerbaijan cooperates.
Sullivan
said: “If the president of Azerbaijan thinks he can stop reporters
from investigating crimes by putting them in jail he is wrong. The truth
will always come out and history will rightly judge us all.”
Ismayilova,
39, first received international attention when secret service agents hid a
video camera in her bedroom and recorded her in intimate moments with her
boyfriend, threatening her with exposure. When she refused to be silenced, the
videos were released in the spring of 2012.
That
year she received both the German ZEIT Foundation award and the International
Women’s Media Federation’s Courage Award. In 2013, she won the Global Shining
Light Award. This year she has been honored by the PEN America Press Freedom
Award, the ZEIT Foundation, the Swedish Press Club, and the National Press Club
in America.
Ismayilova
was inspired by journalist Elmar Huseynov’s murder in 2005 to take up investigative
reporting and speak out against corrupt use of public money by top-level
Azerbaijani officials.
She
exposed graft in the construction and gold mining industries, which appeared to
be linked to Azerbaijan’s First Family.
In
summer 2014, shortly before her arrest, Ismayilova wrote about the
Azerbaijani telecom industry, revealing the previously hidden involvement of President
Aliyev’s daughters.
In
response to her jailing, OCCRP launched The Khadija Project to finish her work. Reporters
around the world joined forces and were quickly able to show that
a company close to President Aliyev and his family had likely
walked off with more than $1 billion in a takeover of the Azerbaijani
state’s stake in Azercell Telecom, the country’s largest mobile
operator.
During
Ismayilova’s incarceration, reporters have continued focusing on the First
Family of Azerbaijan, their associates and their activities, and additional
stories are in the works.
