On July 27, the Ministry of Internal Affairs provided an official response to the inquiry from Meydan TV staff regarding the travel ban that border guards had told them they had been placed under. Arziman Aliyev, the Head of the Interior Ministry’s Passport, Registration and Migration Office, stated in his letter, “The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not imposed any restrictions relating to your ability to leave the country. You are advised to apply to the State Border Service in connection with being turned back from the border.”
On June 30, four Meydan TV reporters, Aytan Alakbarova (Farhadova), Shirin Abbasov, Elnur Mukhtarov and Natig Javadli, were detained at the Boyuk Kasik station while travelling to Georgia. They were told that they had been placed under a travel ban. State Border Service officials told the journalists that the ban had been imposed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), but provided no further explanation, advising them to apply to the MIA.