Khadija Ismayilova: my arrest will cost the authorities dearly

Being released from custody, Azerbaijani journalist and human rights activist Khadija Ismayilova said in an interview to the Azerbaijani service of BBC that the authorities made a mistake when imprisoned her, and had to be released her.

Khadija Ismayilova was in custody for one and half year and was released on 25 May. The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan replaced her real term of detention into conditional one.

Last September a former employee of the Baku bureau of “Radio of Liberty” Ismayilova was sentenced to seven and half years in prison. But she was arrested in the beginning of December 2014.

Ismayilova was charged in defamation, tax evasion, illegal business activities and abuse of power.

The journalist like her numerous colleges and human rights activists say that the accusations were completely unfounded, and the authorities punished her, in particular, for publication about family business of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

Being released Khadija Ismayilova stated: “They thought: if they arrest me, many journalists would stop to do investigations concerning the President’s family or high-ranking officials. This has not been happened. The investigations have become much more. And the more number of investigations have been published – in international mass media, and in home mass media.

The authorities could not achieve the purposes: critics have not become less, and vice versa – more. My arrest has cost the authorities dearly in plan of image and money, which they spent in lobbing of interests of the government in the international organisations.

I am going to do my work like did before I was arrested. I will be done with journalistic investigations and any work that connected with professional journalism.

People in Azerbaijan can be killed and arrested, to be beaten for what they tell the truth. But to tell truth is naturally for man, like to breathe. This is our nature. I think that one not to make a mountain out of a molehill: we, journalists, do nothing especial. But, despite the risks, we need to continue to do what we think is right”.

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