Date of Birth: 5 July 1989
Detained Since: 21 November 2023
Affiliation: Editor-in-Chief, AbzasMedia
Charges:

• Conspiracy to commit illegal entrepreneurship (Art. 192.3.2)
• Conspiracy to commit money laundering (Arts. 193-1.3.1, 193-1.3.2)
• Conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling (Art. 206.4)
• Conspiracy to commit tax evasion (Art. 213.2.1)
• Forgery and use of forged documents (Arts. 320.1, 320.2)

Conviction and Sentence:
On 20 June 2025, Sevinj was sentenced to 9 years in prison by the Baku Assize Court. Appeal is pending.

Political Prisoner Status:
Her detention meets criteria (a) and (e) of PACE Resolution 1900 (2012):

• Violation of freedom of expression and association under the ECHR
• Her prosecution is politically motivated and aimed at silencing her as a prominent critical journalist.

Summary:
Sevinj Vagifgizi is a prominent Azerbaijani journalist and Editor-in-Chief of AbzasMedia since 2022. She has long faced government restrictions—including a travel ban between 2015 and 2019. Her arrest in November 2023 followed the detention of AbzasMedia‘s director, Ulvi Hasanli, and marked the start of a wider crackdown on critical media and civil society.

Her case—widely known as part of the “AbzasMedia case”—was escalated in November 2024 to include a series of conspiracy charges. The prosecution’s central claim rests on the discovery of €40,000 at the AbzasMedia office—money that independent observers and her defence argue was planted by authorities. There is no evidence linking her directly to the funds or any illicit activity.

The charges of smuggling, money laundering, and illegal entrepreneurship are unsupported by verifiable evidence, and the court’s reasoning has been criticised for vague legal analysis and reliance on politically motivated smear campaigns in pro-government media. The case exhibits features of selective justice, denial of due process, and fabricated charges, echoing patterns previously condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in politically repressive cases from 2013–2014.

International human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, have denounced her arrest and trial as politically motivated and unjust.

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