Nargiz Mukhtarova knew something was wrong when she didn’t hear from her husband.
Farid Mehralizada, a journalist and an economist, always texted her to let her know he had arrived at his office in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. But on May 30, the text never came.
The panic over his whereabouts lasted several hours. Eventually, he arrived at their home, handcuffed and accompanied by about eight police officers, Mukhtarova told VOA.
“I tried to stay calm and not add to his worry. I kept thinking about how many days this would take from our lives and what would happen next,” she said.
At the time of her husband’s arrest, she was five months pregnant.
“Now, nearly six months have passed, and he is still not home. He missed the birth of our baby. Our child is now one month old, and her father still hasn’t seen her,” Mukhtarova said.
Mehralizada works at the Azerbaijani Service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. His case underscores the state of press freedom in Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan has long been one of the world’s worst violators of human rights in general and press freedom in particular,” Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA.
Over the past year alone, Azerbaijani authorities have jailed at least 14 journalists in direct retaliation for their work, according to the New York-based CPJ. Many of the journalists are facing charges of currency smuggling, which media watchdogs have rejected as bogus.
Azerbaijani authorities have “cynically embarked on an unprecedented jailing spree against its brightest and most probing reporters, silencing anyone who could hold the authorities to account,” Said told VOA.
On June 1, a Baku court placed Mehralizada under pretrial detention for “conspiring to smuggle foreign currency” in connection to a case brought against the independent news outlet Abzas Media. Mehralizada and Abzas Media both say he never worked for the outlet.
Although Mehralizada’s involvement with Abzas Media was limited to giving expert commentary, several journalists who work at the independent media outlet are among those who have been jailed en masse over the past year.
Abzas Media is considered one of the last remaining independent news organizations in Azerbaijan. It is known for its coverage of corruption, including allegations linked to the country’s ruling Aliyev family.
In August, a couple months after Mehralizada’s arrest, authorities brought new charges, accusing him of “illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery.” He faces up to 12 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges.
RFE/RL has called for Mehralizada’s release.
“We are deeply concerned by his continued imprisonment on false charges,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in an October statement.
Mehralizada is one of four RFE/RL journalists currently jailed for their work. The others are Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk in Belarus, and Vladyslav Yesypenko in Russia-occupied Crimea. RFE/RL rejects the charges against all of them as false.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets including RFE/RL and VOA, has also rejected the charges against Mehralizada as bogus.
“Journalism is not a crime, yet, as we see in Farid’s case, journalists around the world continue to be persecuted for reporting the truth,” USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. “The cruelty is abhorrent. It’s time for Farid to return home, and for the unjust persecution against journalists to end.”
The Azerbaijani government has targeted RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service for years, including shuttering its bureau, blocking its website and using Pegasus spyware to target its reporters.
“Our people, like Farid, do their jobs at great personal risk,” Ilkin Mammadov, director of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, told VOA.
Earlier this week, Vugar Gurbanov, a counselor at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email that “Azerbaijan has a vibrant journalism tradition.”
“Understandably, journalism has nothing to do with permissiveness to engage in illegal activities,” Gurbanov added.
The embassy did not reply to specific questions about Mehralizada’s case.
Almost six months have passed since Mehralizada was arrested, and Mukhtarova says her husband is doing OK. He spends his days reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and finding whatever ways he can to pass the time without his family, she said.
The couple is permitted to have one weekly meeting.
“We look forward to it with excitement every Monday,” Mukhtarova said. “He’s my partner in every sense, sharing both the joys and challenges of life.”
Still, she says, it’s “heartbreaking for both of us” that Mehralizada hasn’t been able to meet their newborn daughter.
“He was so excited about becoming a father, and missing these early moments is incredibly painful for him,” she said.
Mehralizada is well-known for his coverage of economic, social and environmental issues in Azerbaijan, according to Mammadov. He is especially skilled at explaining the everyday impact of complicated economic policies to readers, he told VOA.
“What makes him a uniquely talented journalist is his mastery of the art of storytelling,” said Mammadov, who believes Mehralizada was targeted because of his work.
“This is a textbook case of retaliation against a journalist,” Mammadov said. “It is clear the government’s case against him is a direct attempt to silence his honest reporting.”
Mukhtarova agrees.
“Whenever he uncovered something overlooked, he would feel a surge of excitement,” she said. “Farid had a passion for revealing the truth to people.”
Mehralizada is expected to be held in pretrial detention until at least mid-December. Like many journalists jailed in Azerbaijan, his future remains uncertain.
