A subcommittee of the SFRC held a hearing on the funding requests for the Human Rights and Western Hemisphere bureaus at State. Sen. Cardin used the opportunity to ask Tom Malinowski about Khadija:
“I want to move on to a tragic situation in Azerbaijan. We are seeing an increase in the number of political prisons in that country and their oppression against those who differ with the government. One of those cases is Khadija Ismaylova, a political prisoner and Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty reporter, is currently serving seven and half year sentence in Azerbaijan on charges many human rights organizations regard as politically motivated. She has been a tireless reporter on corruption in the country and is widely believed that she was targeted for her work. Could you just comment as to what diplomatic tools we have available in order to raise this issue?”- asked Cardin.
Tom Malinowski answered: “Well I would say first of all that we have called and will continue to call for the release of Khadija Ismayilova. We are very well aware of her case. In the last several weeks we have engaged very intensively with the government of Azerbaijan on human rights issues. It has I think contributed to actions by the government of Azerbaijan to release a number of people who we consider to be political prisoners, including Intigam Aliyev, an internationally recognized human rights lawyer, Rasul Jafarov, Anar Mammadli who was the chairman of their election monitoring and democratic elections center. We have seen some, I think, very positive steps by the government of Azerbaijan in response to our engagement but we would certainly agree with you that the good news that we have seen is not yet enough and there are still others in detention who should not be, including Khadija Ismayilova, and we feel very strongly that releasing the remaining political prisoners and more broadly expanding freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Azerbaijan would be good for that country’s future and good for our relationship with Azerbaijan”. -0-
Politics
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The recent detentions of journalists in Azerbaijan have caused sharp criticism from the country's politicians and public figures.
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An official notification has been sent to the American side that USAID has no legal grounds to work in the country and that it should stop its activities.This was reported by Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizadeh.
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The International Committee to Protect Journalists (ICPJ) condemned the arrest of Shamshad Agha, editor-in-chief of the independent news website 'Arqument.az', and called on the Azerbaijani authorities to release him and other imprisoned journalists.
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On the evening of February 5, it was reported that journalist Shahnaz Beylargizi had been arrested. She had been a presenter on the Toplum TV channel for several years. After a criminal case was initiated against the channel in March 2024 and nearly all of its staff were arrested, Beylargizi was questioned multiple times. According to relatives, the police conducted a search of her apartment.
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