Journalism in Exile – New Reality for Azerbaijan's Independent Media

Azerbaijan holds 164th place out of 180 countries in the 2024 Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index. This is 13 points lower in comparison to 2023 and unsurprising, considering that a “mediacide” had taken place in the country in the recent years. Tens of journalists were arrested on one and the same charge of “foreign currency contraband carried out by a group” and the independent media for which they had worked are closed. 

The detained journalists, their colleagues and international organizations claim that the allegations have been fabricated and the arrests - politically motivated. Meanwhile, progovernment mass media proclaim the latter as traitors of the motherland who receive their funding from Europe and USA to muddle the waters in the country, such claims giving credence to the suggestion that the charges are not of criminal but political character.

The space for free speech has been shrinking in Azerbaijan over the course of the recent 10 years ever since in 2014 a legislative amendment was passed, analogous in essence to the infamous Russian law on foreign agents. However, in 2024 this slow moving and even already routine crisis began to speedily worsen, surprising both journalists and the media. Now they must urgently adapt to working in exile. This article will discuss two such media outlets based in Berlin and deemed illegal in their own country.

At the wheel of a sunken ship

Founded in 2016 AbzasMedia media specializes in anti-corruption investigations. The heroes (or rather, antiheroes) of its stories have usually been high-ranking officials and members of Azerbaijani government. Following the 2020 war in Karabakh these investigations have also started to cover reconstruction works being carried out in the region.

In November and December of 2023, six employees of this outlet, director Ulvi Hasanli, his deputy Mahammad Kekalov, editor-in-chief, Sevinj Vagifgizi, reporters Nargis Absalamova, and Elnara Gasymova and the investigative journalist Hafiz Babali were detained one after another on the charges of foreign currency smuggling. More charges followed: illegal commercial activity, legalization of revenue begotten illegally (money laundering) and falsification of documents as well as group evasion of taxes. All the charges combined can amount to a sentence of up to 12 years. The journalists spent over a year in a pre-trial detention facility before the court proceeding began on December 17, 2024. It is unclear how long it would last and how it would end.

Meanwhile AbzasMedia continues its activity: a few months after closing its Baku office the outlet relaunched in Berlin under the direction of a political immigrant and journalist Leyla Mustafayeva.“In 2023 I had my personal plans related to studies in the USA. But after the guys at AbzasMedia ended up in jail, the organization Forbidden Stories offered me to help finish their incomplete investigations. This way I gradually got involved in AbzasMedia’s work and since February 2024, took on the role of, so to speak, “acting editor-in-chief” Leyla recalls. 

By the time she stepped up to the wheel at AbzasMedia, it was the wheel of a sunken ship: the outlet remained if only in name.

“AbzasMedia needed to be recovered not even from zero, but from minus. And that is much more complicated than to launch a new media outlet. And first we had to solve the problem with our personnel. Since the journalists residing in Azerbaijan fear dealing with us, and moving people here is beyond our capabilities, I gathered a team of Azerbaijani political immigrants already living in Berlin,” Leyla explains, adding that the team is very small. That is why each person performs several roles, taking on triple the volume of work.

Specifics of such work also have significantly changed. If previously material for stories was “foraged” by correspondents, now there is a full dependence on social networks and civic journalism.

“We addressed our audience with the call to inform us of socioeconomic and political problems that they come up against. This is what our stories are based on.”

Anti-corruption investigations remain a very large part of all AbzasMedia’s activity, carried out by Leyla and Co. They gather information from open sources - mainly foreign, since information about commercial organizations and other financial documentation of such kind is largely inaccessible to the public in Azerbaijan.

At the same time, the main staff of the publication continues to contribute to its work: Ulvi Hasanli, Sevinj Vagifgizi and Nargiz Absalamova, through their lawyers, report on cases of violations that they encounter in the pre-trial detention center. 

But shortage of staff, lack of direct access to information and impossibility of working on the ground advertently impact productivity. Volume of AbzasMedia publications has significantly shrunk.

Leyla Mustafayeva admits that at current time they do not have plans or vision other than to not allow this ship to sink yet another time, keeping AbzasMedia afloat until such a time when the main staff would be released.

“It worries me that with this level of pressure and repressions, independent journalism in Azerbaijan could entirely disappear as a phenomenon. We can only hope that the situation softens somewhat, so people inside the country could at least do their job to some extent.”

“Why don't they touch you?”

But so far, the situation is only getting worse. In the beginning of December 2024 the list of journalists held in politically motivated detention grew by five employees of another independent media outlet, Meydan TV. Meydan TV is not even legally an Azerbaijani media outlet since it was founded in 2013 in Berlin and has German registration. Also in Berlin is the head office of Meydan TV, though most of the team used to work in Baku.

In the recent years, their signature was to cover everyday social problems, especially in the regions. The outlet became a hotline of sorts for residents of the provinces, one where one might call to complain about faulty sewage, lack of water supply, a school building in emergency state of disrepair, etc.

“We received on daily basis an enormous number of such requests and reacted to them, if not to all of them, then to many. We shed light on a problem and often it brought results. We managed to attract attention of the relevant civil servants and organizations to solve a problem,” says the manager of social networks and video production, Orkhan Mammad, who works in the Berlin head office.

According to him, they have repeatedly offered their Baku colleagues to move them out of the harm’s way to Berlin in 2023. They have categorically refused to leave the country.

“When, in November 2023, the repressions against AbzasMedia began, its Editor-in-Chief Sevinj Vagifgazi was abroad. She could have remained there, but she returned to Azerbaijan knowing that she would be arrested. After this, our journalists thought it was shameful to “escape”. They saw it as betrayal and this is why they preferred to remain in Azerbaijan, disregarding all the risks,” says Orkhan Mammad.

All last year when the wave of repressions sunk one free media outlet after another (in addition to AbzasMedia, online TV channels Kanal-13 and Toplum were shut using almost the same playbook) journalists of Meydan TV increasingly heard the frank question: “Why don't they touch you?” Many thought it was strange, almost unnatural, considering that Meydan TV is the most known dissident Azerbaijani media site, one that is even blocked inside the country. However, thanks to VPN and social media the reach of Meydan TV's publications nears a million people, which is approximately 20 per cent of Azerbaijan's adult population. 

They were finally “touched” on December 6th, 2024: Aynur Ganbarova, Aytaj Ahmedova, Khayala Agayeva, Natig Javadli and Aysel Umudova, as well as freelance journalists Ramin Jabrailzade and Ahmed Mukhtar, were arrested within one day on the same charge of “foreign currency contraband committed by a group acting in concert.”

Reacting to these arrests, the international human rights organization Amnesty International underscored that they occurred shortly after the COP29 climate conference was held in Baku.

“We feared reprisals in the wake of COP29 and now call on UN member states to respond to the ongoing crackdown in Azerbaijan, the country that still holds the COP29 presidency,” said Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Following the arrest of its main staff, Meydan TV announced that it would continue to operate. Apparently, it would do so entirely from abroad. The media outlet, which until now had been an emigrant one de jure, would now become one de facto.

New reality?

Working in exile is an entirely new reality for Azerbaijani media. One they were not prepared for.

Human Rights Defender Emin Aslan considers that this is first of all the result of journalists’ and other members of civic society’s own short sightedness.

“After all, it's been clear for a long time now that most likely a moment will come when we will be compelled to leave and work abroad. But no one prepared for it. Did not think where to migrate, how to migrate, how to work remotely.... And this is why it is now so hard to orientate ourselves in these new circumstances.

I can say even for myself: I did not consider the option of immigration until the last moment. I left only in November 2023 when the clouds have really started to gather.”

Еmin Aslan knows from experience how difficult it is to get a visa and legal status in Europe. He calls this one of the major problems for media in exile: 

“There are no special programs or “complex” support for Azerbaijani political immigrants and media in exile, in contrast to, for instance, the Russians and Belarusians. This is why it is so difficult for Azerbaijani journalists to simply get to Germany or another European country. And to register a media outlet is practically impossible. In the best case, having gone through numerous bureaucratic procedures, it is possible to register an umbrella NGO that would govern the media project.”

Russian and Belarusian colleagues come up in another context, the lack of financing for Azerbaijani journalists in political immigration: “Of course, the scope and significance of Russian and Belarusian media in the geopolitical context like war in Ukraine is much larger than Azerbaijan’s. This is why donors show “financial preference” to them and create necessary conditions for their work in exile. But the situation with freedom of speech in Azerbaijan is as bad as in Russia and Belarus and independent media are much less numerous. And we too need full support in order to continue to work and provide our audience inside the country with objective information. If not, the people will remain in a full informational vacuum, or to be more precise, one-on-one with official propaganda, which is possibly even worse”, says Leyla Mustafayeva.

She explains that the lack of funding and legal support is the reason AbzasMedia does not have an editorial office in Berlin to this day, has no possibility to grow its team, or to purchase necessary equipment, to arrange their “journalistic environment” and work more productively.

Currently, there are essentially no independent media left inside Azerbaijan, and the transfer of work abroad and its complete reformatting is happening in emergency mode.

On December 19, 2024, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the repression of the Azerbaijani authorities against civil society and the media, including employees of AbzasMedia and MeydanTV.

The European Parliament urges the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately stop the repression. In addition, the parliament recommends that the European Union impose sanctions on Azerbaijani officials responsible for serious human rights violations and suspend the Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic partnership in the field of energy, concluded with Azerbaijan in 2022.

However, this is not the first time that the European Parliament has stated this, but so far the matter has not gone beyond issuing statements.

The Content of the article is the sole responsibility of the author and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.