For over a year, a criminal trial has been ongoing against the editor-in-chief of the independent publication Abzas Media, Sevinj Vagifgizi, which human rights activists, authoritative international organizations, and she herself consider politically motivated. Since November 2023 - almost 500 days - the journalist has been in custody. On the eve of a new hearing in her case, the international organization Reporters Without Borders (French: Reporters Sans Frontières, RSF) called for the immediate release of Vagifgizi along with other defendants. Let us recall that five of her colleagues are also involved in the case.

RSF states that Sevinj Vagifgizi "personifies the resistance of the free press" and strongly condemns "this prosecution on trumped-up charges of smuggling foreign currency." The organization recalls that at the previous court hearing on March 11, the editor-in-chief of Abzas Media confidently pointed to the country's president as the person directly responsible for her imprisonment.

"The purpose of our arrest is to remove us [from journalism] because we exposed the corruption crimes of Ilham Aliyev and his entourage," RSF quotes the journalist as saying.

Sevinc Vagifgizi is an investigative journalist known for her materials exposing high-level corruption. In early December last year, the United States of America awarded her as one of 10 world champions in the fight against corruption.

"Azerbaijani journalist Sevinc Vagifgizi has dedicated more than a decade of her life to exposing government abuses. She is also the only laureate who is not with us today," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the awards ceremony at the State Department.

As Reporters Without Borders notes, Vagifgizi’s trial, marred by numerous procedural violations, “is part of a wider crackdown on the independent press in Azerbaijan.” The country ranks 164th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index.