Azerbaijani authorities arrested two independent journalists Tuesday amid an escalating crackdown on media and civil society.
Ulviyya Ali, a reporter with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America’s Azerbaijani bureau, was arrested while entering her apartment. She had been placed under a travel ban in January in connection with the Meydan TV case, in which the entire staff is currently imprisoned. They are accused of smuggling foreign currency into the country.
As Ali anticipated her arrest, she wrote a letter and asked friends to share it publicly once it occurred.
“If you are reading this, it means I have been falsely accused and unlawfully arrested for my journalistic activities,” she stated in the letter.
“Let me clarify that, like my fellow journalists, I have not committed any crime—I have neither brought what they call ‘illegal funds’ into the country, nor have I engaged in any wrongdoing.”
She also denied any “professional affiliation with Meydan TV,” but added that even if she did, “cooperating with Meydan TV is not a crime.” Ali also pointed out that she has “long worked with Voice of America.”
According to feminist activist Gulnara Mehdiyeva, police searched Ali’s apartment as soon as she was arrested, damaging some of her belongings .
“The house was left completely ransacked. The area under the piano, drawers, and cabinet shelves were broken. We still don’t know what they took from the house or what they “found”.” - Mehdiyeva wrote on Facebook.
Authorities also arrested civil activist-turned-journalist Ahmad Mammadli, founder of Yoldash Media—a platform that reports on government crackdown and labor rights violations in Azerbaijan through social media.
In an interview with JamNews, a media outlet covering the South Caucasus, Mammadli’s wife Turkan said she was never informed about her husband’s detention.
“I only found out about his arrest through social media posts,” she said. She confirmed that Ahmad had recently been working as a journalist.
No official statement has been released regarding the journalists’ arrests, but pro-government media have begun circulating dubious accounts seemingly aimed at justifying the crackdown.
The APA News Agency, for example, claimed that Mammadli allegedly stabbed another individual during a dispute over a taxi seat—a report widely seen as an attempt to discredit him.
Since November 2023, the Azerbaijani government has launched a crackdown on independent media, arresting nearly three dozen journalists and media workers.
Azerbaijan ranked 167th out of 180 countries in the May 2025 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, which cited a “new wave of fierce repression targeting the country’s few remaining independent journalists.”
