Human Rights
Prisoner of Conscience: Afgan Sadygov, Azerbaijan
Afgan Sadygov is an Azeri journalist and founder of Azel.tv, an independent news website. As its editor, Sadygov mainly tackled topics related to corruption and social injustice. He was often critical of the government and exposed wrongdoing by local officials.
In May 2020, he left home to buy groceries but didn’t return.
A few hours later, six men identifying themselves as police officers arrived at his apartment and told his wife he had been arrested. After searching his home, they confiscated several electronic devices and some of his reporting notes.
A day later, Sadygov was charged with extortion, accused of demanding a bribe from an official to kill a story about him.
His lawyer said the reporter was innocent, his detention a payback for a story he published that alleged local officials in the city of Sumgayit tried to silence victims of sexual assault by local police officers.
In November 2020, Sadygov was sentenced to seven years in prison. The journalist went on a hunger strike to protest his conviction and his lawyer appealed the sentence. His sentence was reduced to six years a few months later and eventually cut to four years in July 2021. But his health declined significantly during this time, according to his lawyer.
The Azel.tv website has been suspended for prolonged periods of time.
This is not the first time Sadygov has been arrested because of his work. In 2016 he was detained and charged with assault. Even though the journalist maintained his innocence and denied any wrongdoing, he was later sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Since his detention in 2020, a number of media freedom and human rights organizations have urged Azerbaijani authorities to release Sadygov, seeing his arrest as an attempt to silence independent media in the country.
“Azerbaijani authorities should drop the fabricated charges against the journalist Afgan Sadygov and release him immediately,” declared Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a 2020 statement. “The authorities should stop persecuting Sadygov for his reporting and allow him and other independent journalists in Azerbaijan to do their job freely and safely.”
He is not the only political prisoner jailed on what are thought to be bogus charges. In recent years, Azerbaijan has arrested and convicted a number of the country’s reporters, human rights activists, and representatives of civil society. On several occasions over the last few years, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has pardoned hundreds of people, including some political prisoners. The latest presidential pardon was issued in May 2022 and included Sadygov.
Disclaimer: As of December 12, 2022, research shows that Afgan Sadygov has been released.
Prisoners of Conscience from East and Southeast Europe
We feature select few prisoners of conscience out of the many in East and Southeast Europe. One political prisoner is one too many.
Find out who the other political prisoners are #PrisonersofConscience #FreeThemAll and in the special Focus on our website.