Hafiz Babali, economics editor for independent news agency Turan and a freelance reporter for anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media, has been detained since December 2023. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in June 2025 on multiple financial charges in relation to alleged receipt of Western donor funding.
Babali is one of at least 25 journalists and media workers jailed between late 2023 and August 2025, in a major crackdown on the independent press and civil society in Azerbaijan.
In November 2023, police in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, arrested four Abzas Media journalists: director Ulvi Hasanli, project coordinator Mahammad Kekalov, chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, and reporter Nargiz Absalamova. A court ordered all four to be held in pretrial detention on charges of conspiring to smuggle a large sum of money into the country, after police claimed to find 40,000 euros (US$42,040) during a search of the outlet’s office.
On November 28, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the U.S., German, and French envoys and accused their embassies and organizations registered in those countries of illegally funding Abzas Media.
On December 13, Baku police arrested Babali on the same currency smuggling charges, searched his home, and confiscated the journalist’s computer, cell phone, and documents. A sixth Abzas Media journalist was arrested in January.
Abzas Media is one of three major outlets — along with Toplum TV and Meydan TV — from among Azerbaijan’s last remaining independent media targeted over alleged receipt of Western donor money since late 2023. The crackdown has been linked to a decline in Azerbaijani-Western relations and a surge in Azerbaijani authoritarianism following the country’s military recapture of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September 2023.
Babali and his colleagues have denied the charges. A statement issued by Abzas Media said the charges were retaliation by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for “a series of investigations into the corruption crimes committed by the president of the country and his appointed officials.”
In August 2024, authorities brought seven new economic crime charges against the Abzas journalists, including money laundering and tax evasion, increasing the maximum prison sentence to up to 12 years.
Azerbaijani law requires civil society groups to obtain state approval for foreign grants, which authorities accuse Abzas Media and other outlets of failing to do.
Defense arguments, reviewed by CPJ, said that such an omission was punishable by fines, not criminal sanctions, and prosecutors did not provide evidence the journalists engaged in criminal activity. Rights advocates accuse Azerbaijan of routinely withholding permission for foreign grants and refusing to register organizations that seek them.
On June 20, 2025, a court sentenced Babali to nine years in prison and his colleagues to between 7.5 and nine years. As the verdicts were read out, Abzas Media journalists turned their backs on the judges and held up posters of the outlet’s corruption investigations into senior officials, including the president’s family.
On September 9, a Baku court upheld the sentences against Babali and the other journalists jailed in the Abzas Media case.
As of August 2025, Babali is being held at Umbaki Penitentiary Complex, around 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Baku. Gunel Safarova, acting director and editor-in-chief of Abzas Media, told CPJ the journalist experienced problems with his eyesight and pain in his leg but was not receiving adequate treatment.
CPJ emailed the Penitentiary Service of Azerbaijan for comment in August 2025, but did not receive a reply.