London, November 13, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Thursday’s sentencing of Azerbaijani journalists Imran Aliyev and Elgiz Gahraman to prison terms of 10 and nine years respectively, and calls on authorities to stop using allegations of illegal overseas funding to silence the independent press.
On November 12, a court in the capital Baku handed down the sentences to Aliyev, chief executive of Meclis.info (Azerbaijani for Parliament.info), and Gahraman, the media outlet’s data analyst, for charges linked to alleged violations of foreign funding laws. Freelance accountant Tamella Musayeva also received an eight-year suspended sentence.
“The lengthy prison sentences given to Meclis.info’s Elgiz Gahraman and Imran Aliyev brings the total number of journalists jailed in Azerbaijan to at least 26. Once again, authorities are ferociously abusing foreign funding laws to wipe out independent media,” said Fiona O’Brien, CPJ’s director for Europe and Central Asia. “Azerbaijan should not be treating journalists like hardened criminals simply for doing their jobs. International partners must hold Azerbaijan’s government to account.”
Meclis.info, which publishes analyses and videos on the work of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary deputies, is one of four leading independent outlets targeted over alleged unlawful receipt of Western donor funding, amid a wider crackdown on civil society. In July, nine individuals linked to Toplum TV were sentenced on similar allegations, while six journalists and media workers with the investigative outlet Abzas Media were jailed in 2025. Meanwhile, 12 journalists and media workers linked to Berlin-based Meydan TV are in pretrial detention on financial crime charges.
Azerbaijani law requires civil society groups to obtain state approval for foreign grants and authorities say Meclis.info and others failed to comply. The European Court of Human Rights has said that such omissions are punishable under Azerbaijani law only by fines while independent experts say authorities refuse to register independent organizations, making it impossible for them to legally receive foreign grants.
Aliyev, Gahraman, and Musayeva were convicted on two counts each of illegal entrepreneurship and money laundering, currency smuggling, tax evasion, forgery of documents, and use of forged documents.
Aliyev had been in detention since his 2024 arrest on charges of currency smuggling and has said that the police beat and electrocuted him — allegations denied by the ministry of internal affairs.
Gahraman was taken into custody on Thursday. The court ordered that he serve time in a maximum security prison as he was previously jailed for two years in 2017, when he was an activist.
During the trial, Aliyev admitted receiving funds from foreign donors including USAID, the German Marshall Fund, and the U.S. Embassy in Baku, but denied the criminal charges and said he was being prosecuted for Meclis.info’s work.
Azerbaijan was the world’s sixth-worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2025 prison census with 24 behind bars.