New York, February 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Azerbaijani court decision on February 26 sentencing Aziz Orujov, director of independent broadcaster Kanal 13, to two years in prison on illegal construction charges.
“Amid an unprecedented crackdown that has seen dozens of journalists incarcerated, Azerbaijan authorities’ singling out of Aziz Orujov from among thousands of Azerbaijanis living on unregistered land for jailing on dubious illegal construction charges is breathtakingly cynical,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Authorities should immediately release Orujov and stop jailing journalists in retaliation for their work.”
The Sabail District Court in the capital, Baku, convicted Orujov of building a house for himself without authorization on a plot of land that he had purchased on the city outskirts.
The journalist’s lawyer, Bahruz Bayramov, told CPJ that although the land was not officially registered to Orujov, that’s also the case for around half a million homes in and around Baku, and that authorities had not jailed anyone besides Orujov for the offense. The fact that Orujov’s prosecution has taken place against the backdrop of authorities’ repeated announcement of plans to legalize such buildings shows that it was retaliation for his reporting, Bayramov said.
Kanal 13’s Azerbaijani YouTube channel, which has nearly 500,000 subscribers, regularly covers sensitive topics such as human rights violations and gives space to opposition views. In 2017, Orujov was jailed for a year in reprisal for the outlet’s work.
Azerbaijani police arrested Orujov on the illegal construction charges in November 2023. The next month, they added currency smuggling charges for alleged receipt of Western donor funds, arrested Kanal 13 reporter Shamo Eminov, and ordered Kanal 13 blocked. In December 2024, authorities suspended the currency smuggling case against both and released Eminov.
CPJ’s annual prison census found that Azerbaijan was among the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024. At least 24 journalists are currently jailed in retaliation for their work, most of them detained since late 2023 over Western funding allegations, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
CPJ Staff | Radio Free (2025-02-28T19:33:42+00:00) Azerbaijan sentences Kanal 13 director Aziz Orujov to 2 years in prison. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/02/28/azerbaijan-sentences-kanal-13-director-aziz-orujov-to-2-years-in-prison/
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