The International Press Institute (IPI) welcomes the recent European Court of Human Rights’ verdict which ruled that the conviction of veteran Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova was baseless and a clear violation of her right to freedom of expression and a fair trial. IPI calls on authorities in Azerbaijan to immediately comply with the ruling, lift the travel ban on Ismayilova and drop all charges against her media outlet, Toplum TV.
On January 27, Europe’s top human rights court ruled that Azerbaijan’s prosecution of Ismayilova was intended “to silence and punish her for her journalistic activities.” The Court concluded that the violation of Ismayilova’s freedom of expression was “not only unlawful but also grossly arbitrary and incompatible with the principle of the rule of law.”
The ruling concerns Ismayilova’s 2015 conviction on a range of non-speech-related charges, which initially resulted in a sentence of seven-and-a-half years in prison. Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court later reduced that to a three-and-a-half-year suspended term, upholding her conviction for illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion, while quashing the remaining charges.
The Strasbourg Court ruled that these judicial decisions against Ismayilova were flawed, arbitrary and deprived her of a fair trial. Judges noted that at least one charge related to her lack of accreditation for carrying out journalistic work for foreign media was directly connected to her practice of journalism. The court also found that the Azerbaijani authorities had failed to demonstrate that the prosecution was unrelated to her status as a reporter.
Assessing the overall pattern of prosecutions launched against the journalist, the ECHR concluded that the authorities were “driven by improper reasons” and that the criminal law had been misused as a tool to punish and deter her from carrying out investigative reporting.
An investigative journalist who exposed corruption at the highest levels of government and the ruling family, Ismayilova spent nearly one-and-a-half years in prison under this abusive conviction
IPI stands in solidarity with Ismayilova, who has now faced a more-than decade-long campaign of harassment, smear campaigns and abusive criminal prosecution aimed at silencing her watchdog journalism.
Ismayilova resides in Azerbaijan but remains banned from traveling internationally due to a new criminal case targeting her current outlet, Toplum TV.
According to the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform, at least 36 journalists are currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan, making the country the largest jailer of journalists in the region , with many held under dire conditions. IPI reiterates our call for their immediate and unconditional release.