Ulviyya Ali, a freelance reporter who previously worked for U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America, has been detained since May 2025 as part of a currency smuggling case against independent outlet Meydan TV.
Ali, whose legal name is Ulviyya Guliyeva, is one of at least 25 leading journalists and media workers jailed in an unprecedented crackdown on the independent press since late 2023. Most of them, including Ali, 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 in September 2023.
Police in Baku arrested Ali in the early hours of May 7, 2025, and searched her apartment, where they claimed to find more than 6,000 euros (US$6,800). Gulnara Mehdiyeva, a friend of Ali, told CPJ that police repeatedly struck the journalist in her head and threatened to sexually assault her to force her to give them her phone password.
Later the same day, a court ordered Ali to be held in pretrial detention as part of a case against Germany-based Meydan TV, nine of whose journalists had previously been jailed on smuggling charges in late 2024 and early 2025. Ali had been interrogated in connection with the Meydan TV case in January 2025 and banned from travel.
In a Facebook post written in anticipation of her arrest and posted by colleagues on May 7, Ali denied any affiliation with Meydan TV or bringing any funds into the country illegally. “If you are reading this post, it means that I have been defamed and illegally arrested for my journalistic activity,” she wrote.
One of the most prominent independent journalists continuing to report in Azerbaijan amid the crackdown, Ali freelanced for Voice of America prior to Azerbaijan’s cancellation of the broadcaster’s accreditation in February and the Trump administration’s funding cuts, after which she continued to report on sensitive topics like political trials on her personal social media accounts.
Exiled media advocate Emin Huseynov told CPJ that journalists affiliated with international media were usually afforded a certain measure of protection in Azerbaijan, but that VOA’s effective closure “100% made Ulviyya more vulnerable” to arrest.
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, Ali is being held at Baku Pretrial Detention Center awaiting trial, Mehdiyeva told CPJ. For several weeks following her beating during her arrest, Ali experienced headaches, nausea, and vomiting, which may have been worsened by a benign tumor the journalist has in her brain, Mehdiyeva said. She said that while Ali appears to have recovered, authorities did not provide her with adequate treatment or examination, so the long-term effects of her beating are unclear.
CPJ emailed the Penitentiary Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which oversees the police, for comment in August 2025, but did not receive any reply.