On May 6, 2025, seven police officers stormed the Baku home of Azerbaijani journalist Ulviyya Ali at midnight, searched it, and arrested her. She remains in prison in harsh conditions, and faces up to 20 years on fabricated currency smuggling charges for her independent journalism in a country whose government ranks among the top 10 worst jailers of journalists worldwide.
For six years before her arrest, Ali reported for Voice of America (VOA) on human rights abuses in Azerbaijan. Her arrest came just two months after President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order in March 2025, effectively shuttering VOA.
In an Oct. 9 letter from prison, shared via her family, Ali reflects on her work and her arrest:
Throughout my activity, my sole aim has been to serve human rights, democratic values, freedom of speech, and the press, and to stay faithful to the principles of journalism. It is precisely for this reason that I have been illegally detained since May 6, 2025.“
In prison, Ali continues her journalistic work, writing articles about life behind bars and documenting abuses. For this work, she is subjected to retaliation from the prison administration.
At various times, I face pressure and deprivations because of the articles I write. Recently, to punish me, I was even forced to stay in the same cell with a person accused of manslaughter committed in a state of passion.”
Ali has also been denied essential medical care, despite serious health problems and repeated requests. In her letter, she condemns the regime’s systematic refusal to provide political prisoners with adequate medical care and warns of its devastating consequences:
The state’s indifferent approach to its own obligation clearly indicates a political assassination attempt. There are dozens of examples of political prisoners who were left semi-disabled in prison, released under the guise of pseudo-humanitarianism only to struggle for their lives for the rest of their days, or who lost their lives because they were deprived of timely medical examination. … As if arresting us illegally were not enough, the lives of political prisoners are also put at risk.”
While she awaits sentencing, the European Parliament and a bipartisan group of US senators have recently called for the release of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Ali, however, is skeptical:
What fair decision can be expected from a court that unlawfully placed a travel ban on me for 4 months, failed to investigate the police violence and sexual assault threats inflicted on me on the day of my arrest, and ignored my health problems? You decide.”
HRF demands that Azerbaijan immediately release Ali, and echoes her call to speak out about the regime’s escalating crackdown on journalists, civil society, and dissenting voices:
“I call on the US government not to remain silent about the illegal imprisonment of people serving freedom of speech and press, human rights, and democratic values in Azerbaijan at the cost of their own freedom, and to finally take result-oriented steps.
I hope you will not remain indifferent to the lawlessness in Azerbaijan, and to the fate of 9 female journalists and 322 political prisoners.”
The handwritten letter was provided to HRF in English via her family.
