Journalists Imprisoned in 2017 - Afgan Mukhtarli

Meydan TV, Institute of War and Peace Reporting | Imprisoned in Azerbaijan | May 29, 2017

Exiled journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, whose wife initially reported him missing from their home in Tbilisi, Georgia, on May 29, 2017, surfaced the following day in a detention center in Baku, Azerbaijan, regional and local media reported.

Mukhtarli, who has contributed to the Berlin-based independent news outlet Meydan TV and the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting, fled to Georgia from Azerbaijan in 2014. Prior to his departure, Mukhtarli had received threats in relation to his investigative reporting on alleged corruption in the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

Before his detention, Mukhtarli was investigating the assets of the first family of Azerbaijan in Georgia, according to a Facebook post by his colleague and independent investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.

Mukhtarli's wife, Leyla Mustafayeva, told journalists during a May 30 press conference in Tbilisi that her husband called her around 7 p.m. the night before to say he was on his way home from meeting a friend, but never returned. Mustafayeva said she reported her husband as missing to the Georgian police early the next morning.

The independent Azerbaijani news agency Turan later reported that the Azerbaijani border service detained Mukhtarli.

The journalist's lawyer, Elchin Sadygov, told CPJ that Mukhtarli was abducted from Tbilisi and forcefully brought to Azerbaijan. "He was beaten, has a broken nose, bruises all over his head and right eye, his rib may be broken," said Sadygov, who visited Mukhtarli in the detention center on May 30, 2017.

Azerbaijani authorities charged the journalist with illegally crossing the border and bringing contraband with him, according to Sadygov, who said that Mukhtarli told him that the police planted 10,000 euros ($11,200) in his pocket while he was unconscious. Mukhtarli denies all the charges, the lawyer said.

Mukhtarli's wife said at the May 30 press conference that the journalist was under surveillance in the weeks preceding his alleged abduction, but did not specify who she suspected was surveilling him. In a May 18, 2017 interview with the independent online news outlet JAMnews, Mukhtarli said both he and his wife, who is a journalist and an activist, were under surveillance. "They openly follow us, and then leave the photos of what [we] were doing during the day at [our] doorstep," he said.

An Azerbaijani pro-government news site, Haqqin, criticized Mukhtarli and Mustafayeva, along with several other exiled Azerbaijani activists, in a May 4, 2017 article, which portrayed Tbilisi as a nest of anti-Azerbaijani subversives.

As of September 27, 2017, Georgia's chief prosecutor's office was investigating the Mukhtarli case, according to the regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel.

Mustafayeva on October 11, 2017 told Kavkazsky Uzel that she fled Georgia out of fear for her safety. She did not disclose her current location.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on June 15, 2017, calling for Mukhtarli's immediate release. The European Court of Human Rights is reviewing Mukhtarli's complaint as a priority, according to Azerbaijiani freedom of expression group Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety, which cited Sadygov.

On November 20, 2017, Mukhtarli was transferred to the Sheki detention center some 320 kilometers (approximately 200 miles) from Baku, according to regional media.

Sadygov on September 1, 2017, told the regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel that the journalist suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and heart palpitations. On August 31, 2017, a Baku court of appeals denied Mukhtarli's request to be transferred to house arrest so he could receive proper medical treatment, Kavkazsky Uzel reported.