Mushfig Jabbar, a video editor for independent online news outlet Toplum TV, has been detained since March 2024 on currency smuggling charges related to alleged receipt of Western donor funding.
Jabbar 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.
On March 6, 2024, dozens of plainclothes police officers in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, raided the office shared by Toplum TV and affiliated nonprofit Institute for Democratic Initiatives, confiscated their equipment, and took around a dozen Toplum and IDI staff to Baku City Police Department for questioning.
Most of the journalists were released later the same day, but police arrested Jabbar and Toplum TV journalists Farid Ismayilov and Elmir Abbasov on charges of conspiring to smuggle currency into the country after claiming to find around 3000 euros (US$3,280) in each of their homes. On March 8, police arrested Toplum TV founder Alasgar Mammadli on the same charges. A court ordered Jabbar and Mammadli to be held in pretrial detention and released Ismayilov and Abbasov pending trial.
The journalists deny the charges, which are punishable by up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code, saying police planted the money in their homes.
Toplum TV is one of three major outlets – including Abzas Media and Kanal 13 – from among Azerbaijan’s last remaining independent media targeted over alleged receipt of Western donor money between late 2023 and December 1, 2024. The crackdown has been linked to a decline in Azerbaijani-Western relations and authorities’ desire to silence dissent as President Ilham Aliyev secured a fifth consecutive term and Azerbaijan hosted the United Nations climate change conference COP29.
Using information attributed to the police investigation into Toplum TV, pro-government Azerbaijani Press Agency alleged that the outlet illegally received $500,000 from Western donors to foment unrest.
Khadija Ismayilova, Toplum TV’s chief editor and a multiple award-winning investigative journalist jailed from 2014 to 2016 in retaliation for her work, told CPJ the charges against the outlet were “absolutely absurd.” Shortly after the police raid, Toplum TV’s Instagram account was deleted, and its YouTube channel was renamed and its content deleted. Ismayilova said this showed that authorities’ “real intention” is to “silence any platform where criticism is expressed.”
As of December 2024, Jabbar remains in Baku Pretrial Detention Center awaiting trial, Farid Ismayilov told CPJ, adding that Jabbar does not have any health complaints.