Fatima Mövlamli, a freelance reporter for Germany-based Meydan TV, has been detained since February 2025 on currency smuggling charges in relation to alleged receipt of Western donor funding.
Mövlamli is one of at least 25 journalists and media workers from some of Azerbaijan’s last independent news outlets jailed in an unprecedented crackdown on the independent press since late 2023. Most of them, including nine journalists from Meydan TV, have been arrested on allegations of bringing Western donor money into the country illegally. The crackdown has taken place amid declining relations with the West and a surge in Azerbaijani authoritarianism and following Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenian rule.
Police in Baku arrested Mövlamli on February 28, 2025, after previously jailing eight journalists associated with Meydan TV since December 2024. A 10th journalist, former U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America contributor Ulviyya Ali, was also subsequently detained but denied collaboration with Meydan TV.
Azerbaijan’s largest independent outlet, Meydan TV regularly reports on alleged government corruption and rights abuses. The outlet closed its Azerbaijani office under government pressure in 2014 and its website has been blocked for many years.
Acting editor-in-chief Orkhan Mammad said the arrests had “practically paralyzed” Meydan TV’s work, adding that independent Azerbaijani media would now have to operate entirely from exile “like the independent Russian press does.”
On August 28, 2025, the journalists in the Meydan TV case were charged with seven additional crimes, including illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, and money laundering. If found guilty on all the charges, they face up to 12 years in prison.
As of August 2025, Mövlamli remains in Baku Pretrial Detention Center No.1 awaiting trial, Mammad told CPJ, adding that Mövlamli does not have any major health concerns.
CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the office of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev for comment in August 2025, but did not receive any replies.