Farid Mehralizada, an economist and freelance journalist with the website of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani service, has been detained on currency smuggling charges since May 2024. He is one of at least 16 journalists and media workers – 15 of whom CPJ reported on in November and one whose case we confirmed in mid-December – charged with serious crimes between late 2023 and December 1, 2024, in a major crackdown on the independent press and civil society in Azerbaijan.
Around a dozen plainclothes and masked law enforcement officers reportedly seized Mehralizada from the streets of the capital, Baku, on May 30, placing a bag over his head and forcing him into a vehicle. The journalist’s wife, Nargiz Mukhtarova, told CPJ that her husband said the men struck him several times in the head and threatened to kill him. Later that day, police officers searched his home, where they confiscated his computer, cell phones, and car.
On June 1, a Baku court remanded Mehralizada into pretrial detention as part of a currency smuggling case against anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media, six of whose journalists remained in jail awaiting trial as of December 1, 2024. Both Abzas Media and Mehralizada denied that he worked for the outlet.
On October 30, RFE/RL issued a statement calling for the release of Mehralizada, whose work for the outlet was published without attribution for his safety.
Mehralizada covered economic topics for RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani service, Radio Azadliq, which is blocked in Azerbaijan and has operated from exile since a 2014 police raid on its Baku office. Mukhtarova told CPJ that she believes her husband was detained for his journalism and for independent media interviews criticizing government policy.
In August, authorities brought seven new economic crime charges against Mehralizada and the Abzas Media journalists, which could see them jailed for up to 12 years.
The journalists are among 14 Azerbaijani journalists and media workers from the country’s most prominent independent media charged over alleged receipt of Western donor money between late 2023 and December 1, 2024, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
As of November 2024, Mehralizada remains in detention at Baku Pretrial Detention Center, his wife told CPJ, adding that he was in good health.