CoE adopts resolution on the cases of Khadidja Ismailova

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) has called on Azerbaijan to protect journalists from attacks, threats and harassment related to their professional work, having adopted a resolution "on a group of Khadidja Ismailova’s cases".

On March 14, Khadidja Ismailova, the editor-in-chief of the Toplum TV, refused to give testimony to the police in a smuggling case brought against her colleagues. She is banned from leaving the country.

The CoE’s Committee of Ministers has called for particular steps aimed to bring the Azerbaijani law on media into line with the CoE’s standards.

The "Khadidja Ismailova’s group" includes four cases from Azerbaijan, Khalid Agaliev, a legal expert, has explained.

"The first case concerned the spread of footage of her intimate life on the Internet ... The second case had to do with her unlawful detention within a criminal case, in which she was never acquitted, despite the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)," Mr Agaliev has stated.

Two other cases concerned the complaints lodged by Shakhla Abbasalieva and Azer Mursaliev. "Abbasalieva was the chief physician at the Gazakh District Hospital. In 2011, an article was published in the press that she was "not up to the job" because her brother, Elchin Amiraslanov, was serving a life sentence within a mutiny case ... After that, Abbasalieva was fired ... In 2023, the ECtHR found a violation of her privacy in her case and ordered to pay EUR 4500 to her, but the ECtHR’s decision was never enforced," Khalid Agaliev has added.

Another case in this group is the ECtHR’s decision on Mursaliev’s complaint; he is a nephew of Elshad Abdullaev, a former university rector. Mursaliev complained about slander in the media about his alleged involvement, along with other relatives, in the disappearance of another uncle, Makhir Abdullaev (Elshad Abdullaev’s brother).