Tbilisi City Court replaced Afghan Sadygov\u2019s extradition sentence with bail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We call upon Georgian government to drop all charges against him and assist safe passage to a third country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS)<\/strong> expresses its approval of the release of Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadygov, who had been detained in Georgia awaiting extradition since August 4, 2024 \u2014 just a day after he was taken into custody in Tbilisi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Azerbaijani officials accused Sadygov, who leads the Azel.tv news site and YouTube channel, of attempting to extort by threatening to publish damaging content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadygov has been subjected to harsh government persecution in Azerbaijan and has served time in prison there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Social Justice Center, a Georgian human rights group, the Tbilisi City Court approved a prosecutor\u2019s motion to change Sadygov\u2019s extradition detention, leading to his release on bail on April 16, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was freed after the court set bail at 5,000 Georgian lari, which is around $1,800.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This followed a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision that barred Georgia from extraditing Sadygov until a final verdict is reached \u2014 a procedure that might take several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the ECHR ruling, Sadygov stopped the hunger strike he had maintained for 161 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadygov has faced ongoing persecution in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He received a seven-year prison sentence in 2020 for alleged extortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An appeals court reduced his sentence to four years in July 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After spending roughly two years in jail \u2014 during which he went on a hunger strike that severely impacted his health \u2014 President Ilham Aliyev eventually granted him a pardon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Azel.tv, his media platform, has also faced long-term suspensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Azerbaijani reporters have either been turned away from entering Georgia or encountered threats to their safety there on several occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On January 12, 2023, Azerbaijani opposition figure and journalist Seymour Hazi, known for opposing Ilham Aliyev, was refused entry into Georgia without any stated reason from border officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On July 14, 2021, Azerbaijani dissident blogger Huseyn Bakikhanov passed away in Tbilisi under unclear and suspicious conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2017, Afgan Mukhtarli \u2014 an Azerbaijani reporter and activist who had fled to Georgia for safety \u2014 was abducted in Tbilisi, forcibly taken back to Azerbaijan, and sentenced to six years behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IRFS<\/strong> has consistently spoken out against Sadygov\u2019s imprisonment and called for his prompt release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although IRFS<\/strong> is glad about his release, it insists that Sadygov and his family be safeguarded from future harassment or harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadygov was arrested during a broader media clampdown in Georgia, which poses a serious threat to the survival of independent journalism in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One concerning example is the arrest and continued pre-trial detention of Mzia Amaglobeli, the founder and head of two leading independent Georgian media outlets, Netgazeti and Batumelebi, who could face a prison sentence of up to seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IRFS<\/strong> again urges that she be released without delay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tbilisi City Court replaced Afghan Sadygov\u2019s extradition sentence with bail. We call upon Georgian government to drop all charges against him and assist safe passage to a third country. The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS) expresses its approval of the release of Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadygov, who had been detained in Georgia awaiting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-feed"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30363,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30359\/revisions\/30363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}