Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Azerbaijan Court Orders Journalist’s Release

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — A court in Azerbaijan on Wednesday ordered a prominent, award-winning investigative journalist to be released on probation following a storm of international protests about her case, which has been widely seen as an attempt to silence a critical voice.

Khadija Ismayilova has become a symbol of defiance, praised by human rights and free-speech organizations around the world. Her supporters say her conviction and prison sentence were retribution for her reports on alleged corruption involving President Ilham Aliyev and his family in the oil-rich former Soviet republic on the Caspian Sea.

In September 2015, a court in Azerbaijan convicted Ismayilova, a contributor to U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, of several financial crimes and sentenced her to 7½ years in prison. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan's Supreme Court ruled to replace that with a 3 ½-year suspended sentence andordered her released on probation. The court set a five-year period for her probation.

Ismayilova, who has been in prison since her arrest in December 2014, is expected to walk free later Wednesday.

Rights groups have criticized the Azerbaijani government for cracking down on independent media and opposition activists. Several other journalists and rights activists also have been imprisoned in what has been widely seen as an effort by the government to stifle dissent.

Ismayilova was convicted on charges of embezzlement, illegal business activity, tax evasion and abuse of power, which international rights groups have denounced as trumped-up.

Ismayilova won the 2015 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.

"The release on probation of Khadija Ismayilova, an intrepid force exposing corruption in Azerbaijan, is a victory for journalists everywhere who go up against the toughest regimes bent on silencing those who dare challenge them," Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of PEN American Center, said in a statement.

In addition to RFE/RL, a host of media and human rights groups worked publicly and privately to advocate for Ismayilova's release since her arrest in December 2014, among them the Vienna-based International Press Institute, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, and The Associated Press and the Press Association of the United Kingdom as members of the World News Agencies Council.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...