An international rights group has urged Azerbaijan to release jailed journalists who documented landmark environmental protests, marking the third anniversary of the demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human Rights Solidarity (HRS) said a police blockade of Soyudlu village in western Azerbaijan remains in place three years after residents protested against toxic waste from a nearby gold mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The advocacy group highlighted the case of Aytac Tapdig, also known as Aytac Ahmedova, a reporter for the independent outlet Meydan TV who was among the first to film the police response to the protests in June 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Meydan TV journalist Aytac Tapdig was one of the first independent reporters to enter the village and film what was happening,” the organisation said in a statement. “Her footage quickly spread across the world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several months later, Tapdig and fellow Meydan TV reporter Khayala Agayeva were followed by police and prevented from entering the village to continue their reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both reporters are now in prison awaiting trial on smuggling charges, in what press freedom advocates describe as a wider campaign to silence independent media in Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rights group said the two women are “victims of a large-scale wave of repression\u2026 whose only ‘guilt’ was to illuminate and share the truth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were arrested on 6 December 2024 alongside four other Meydan TV colleagues \u2014 Ramin Deko, Aynur Ganbarova, Aysel Umudova, and Natig Javadli \u2014 and civil society activist Ulvi Tahirov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group was initially accused of smuggling foreign currency under Article 206.3.2 of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the investigation was expanded in August 2025, with prosecutors upgrading the charges to seven different criminal offences, including money laundering, tax evasion, and document forgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case has since widened to target five more independent journalists and media workers arrested throughout 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These include Shamshad Aga, the editor-in-chief of news website Arqument.az, who was detained on 5 February 2025, and freelance reporters Nurlan Libre, Fatima Movlamli, Ulviyya Ali, and Ahmad Mukhtar, who were arrested later that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the detained journalists deny the allegations, maintaining they are politically motivated and intended to shut down the country’s last remaining independent voices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An international rights group has urged Azerbaijan to release jailed journalists who documented landmark environmental protests, marking the third anniversary of the demonstrations. Human Rights Solidarity (HRS) said a police blockade of Soyudlu village in western Azerbaijan remains in place three years after residents protested against toxic waste from a nearby gold mine. The advocacy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1047],"class_list":["post-31610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-feed","tag-editor"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31610","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=31610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31613,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31610\/revisions\/31613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}