On June 20, at the latest hearing in the Abzas Media case, the outlet’s imprisoned director, Ulvi Hasanli, delivered his final statement.

He was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

The full text of Ulvi Hasanli’s final statement:

If Azerbaijan had a functioning and fair justice system, it would not be us on trial, but the corrupt officials and the architects of torture. At worst, we’d be here discussing legal matters and walking out acquitted. But in a country where the rule of law is dead, and our case is fabricated and politically motivated, we are forced to speak in political, rather than legal, terms.

Our lawyers have thoroughly dismantled the prosecution’s case, exposing every detail of the investigation. For that reason, I won’t go into the legal arguments again. Instead, for the historical record, I want to briefly highlight a few key points.

The first charge brought against us is smuggling. The authorities claim we illegally transported foreign currency either outside of customs control or without declaring it at a customs checkpoint. Operating outside of customs control implies crossing the state border illegally and not just one of us, but all seven defendants. Of course, this never happened. There is no such incident, and no evidence to support it. In fact, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Baku City Police Department are not only accusing us, they are also implicating the State Border Service by suggesting that its officers failed to detect seven people illegally crossing the border, and that only the police managed to “catch” us.

The second type of smuggling claim involves carrying more than $10,000 or its equivalent without declaration. The case files state that each of us entered or exited the country multiple times - a total of 184 crossings. Some of these occurred before Abzas Media even existed. These earlier trips were nevertheless bundled into the case as “evidence”, another absurdity, but let me move past that.

If we had truly carried undeclared goods or currency across the border, where was the customs service during those 184 crossings? Had there been any violation, surely at least one instance would have been detected. But there were none. So once again, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, along with the police, is effectively accusing the State Customs Committee of negligence. In short, there is not a single fact or piece of evidence to support the smuggling charge.

The second charge is money laundering. It is alleged that we obtained funds of criminal origin and then legalized them. The sources identified by the investigation are internationally reputable organizations. Institutions that have operated in Azerbaijan for many years. Both the government and its affiliated NGOs have received tens of millions in grants and aid from these very organizations. Criminal funds are those obtained through illegal activities such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms dealing, gambling, or similar crimes.

If international organizations are the source of dirty money, if they are engaged in criminal activities, then why has the Azerbaijani government, under the Aliyevs’ 32-year rule, accepted hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars in aid and grants from the UN, the Council of Europe, the EU, USAID, the World Bank, and various Western states? Almost every day, they complain that Section 907 should be repealed because it restricts certain forms of U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan. They complain that Europe and America are helping Armenia but not us. So which is it, are grants and aid criminal, dirty money? When it suits them, grants are a good thing. When it doesn’t, they’re labeled criminal.

The third charge is illegal entrepreneurship. They claim that we were engaged in unauthorized business activity. First of all, media is a non-commercial field. Second, entrepreneurship means buying and selling something, running a trade, working for profit. We were not involved in trade or business. That makes this accusation baseless as well.

Another charge is tax evasion. The investigators linked it to both entrepreneurship and money laundering - a clear example of how irrational this case has become. On one hand, they claim we laundered illicit funds; on the other, they ask why we didn’t pay taxes on those same illicit funds. As I mentioned earlier, we were not engaged in any entrepreneurial activity. If there was no business, no trade, and no income, then what tax exactly are we accused of evading? At the request of the investigation, a tax audit claimed we owed 64,000 manats, including over 40,000 manats in VAT. But when did we become VAT payers? They pulled these figures out of thin air, claiming to base them on “documents” and “evidence.” However, the electronic files submitted for the audit are neither official documents nor legal evidence. They contain no stamps, no signatures - just filenames labeled “proposal.” In Azerbaijani, that simply means “a suggestion.” No credible investigation or court in any proper legal system would ever accept such files as valid evidence.

The final charge is the absurd accusation of document forgery. Document forgery means using a fake stamp or falsifying the signature of an official. In our case, there is no official document, no stamp, and no evidence of forgery. The so-called evidence fabricated by the investigation has already been exposed as baseless.

The European Court of Human Rights has issued hundreds of rulings in cases involving Azerbaijani journalists and activists, repeatedly finding that domestic courts handed down unlawful and politically motivated decisions. This case will be no different.

In 2021, it was revealed that both Sevinc’s and my phones had been infected with Pegasus spyware. The government had been illegally surveilling nearly a thousand people in this way. This was yet another crime committed by the state. And now, these same criminals are accusing us of committing crimes. That’s the essence of our case. The government is attempting to shift onto us the very crimes that we and our fellow investigative journalists have exposed in our reporting about high-ranking officials. Crimes such as the illicit transfer of billions out of the country, money laundering through offshore accounts, tax evasion in foreign tax havens, unlawful business activities by senior officials, rigged public tenders, embezzlement of budget funds, election fraud, and more.

Now let’s turn to the political aspect of this case. The smear campaigns run by pro-government media, as well as President Ilham Aliyev’s public statements about the arrests of journalists and civil society representatives, confirm that our detention is politically motivated and it is an act of repression. Even the regime’s unofficial spokesperson, the so-called MP Zahid Oruj, made a hysterical statement after our arrest: “So many Abzas Media journalists have been imprisoned, yet the website is still operating.” Following our detention, a state body submitted a request to the court to block the Abzas Media website and, of course, the court approved it.

All of this proves that the charges are not really about the seven articles in the indictment, but about the investigations we published and the fact that they implicated senior officials. These people are trapped in a medieval mindset. They fail to understand that we live in the age of the internet, of technology, of artificial intelligence and that in this era, it is simply impossible to suppress information. They imprisoned us, but over 40 investigative journalists from around the world have since joined forces with Abzas Media and pledged to continue our anti-corruption investigations. Today, the work that Abzas Media started not only continues, it is now being published by even more prominent media outlets with larger audiences. They tried to silence us, but instead achieved the opposite.

We have now been in detention for 19 months — in truth, in captivity, because we are being held unlawfully. Yet during this time, our team has received four international awards. So what difference does it make whether government officials recognize us as journalists or not? Both the local and international community consider us political prisoners and they are calling for our release.

They tried to silence us by imprisoning us, but we continue to speak and write. It would be wise for the government to change its mindset, to end repression. As I’ve said before, this is no longer that era - at the very least, they should reflect on the fate of other dictatorships.

Prison, for us, is neither punishment, nor despair, nor suffering. Because the struggle continues and truth, moral integrity, is itself a form of victory. Those who seek to punish us should know that we will leave prison more well-read, stronger, and more experienced. They must understand that prison should never be a place of punishment for journalists or political prisoners.

We have lost our freedom for the sake of free expression and independent journalism. I have no regrets about being imprisoned. This too is an experience. Ilham Aliyev may take away our physical freedom, but he cannot take away our freedom of thought, expression, or speech. Every time we write about an issue, we feel a sense of happiness, both the moral satisfaction it brings and the belief that we may have contributed, even slightly, to solving a problem. For that, we remain deeply grateful to our profession.

Government representatives tell me I have a two-year-old child and should be spending time with them instead of sitting in prison. They suggest I make a deal with government, stop my work, and gain my freedom. But I tell them - we are fighting not just for ourselves, but also for our children. This country does not belong only to the 5 or 10 children of oligarchs, but to the millions of other children as well. Every child in Azerbaijan has the right to live in prosperity, justice, and dignity.

I began my public activism 20 years ago. Most of my work has focused on human rights, anti-corruption, and journalism. Over the years, I was expelled from university, detained multiple times, subjected to police violence, threats, and pressure. My family members were dismissed from their jobs and faced various forms of hardship. Now, those who serve injustice are pressuring us to abandon our work. But if they refuse to stop committing wrongdoing, why should we stop speaking the truth?

Sevinj once said something that stayed with me: “I don’t judge people by their words, but by their actions.” Someone might speak beautifully, eloquently, with all the right phrases, but if their actions say otherwise, then they’re not an honest person.

Today, this dictatorship is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Azerbaijani press with great fanfare, holding conferences, handing out awards, praising Zardabi and talking at length about national, independent media. But their actions tell a different story. A large number of independent journalists are behind bars, and this year, the regime plans to sentence us to 10–12 years in prison. A fitting “award” from a dictatorship.

Rest assured, if great literary figures like Ali bey Huseynzade, Akhundov, or Mirza Jalil were alive today, this government with its current mindset would have targeted them too: smearing their names, fabricating charges, and sentencing them harshly. That’s why the Ilham Aliyev regime has no right to speak of national or independent media. The only kind of media they know is submissive media, because their sole contribution to the press has been imprisoning, silencing, and even murdering independent journalists.

I also want to address the members of the organized investigative journalist gang. We’ve never really talked about this. Every time we met in prison, we laughed together, supported one another, and exchanged positive energy. But I need to say this now: in a time when journalism in Azerbaijan has been crushed under an iron fist and iron heel, when the media has been brought to such a miserable state - the fact that you continue this work despite all the threats and dangers makes you truly remarkable people. I’m proud of you for that, and I thank you for walking this path with me, as friends and comrades. I’m grateful to you for giving me the honor of sharing this journey with you.

I also want to say a few words to our parents and family members. I know you feel deeply hurt and discouraged by the heavy sentences the prosecutor has demanded and the harsh verdicts expected from the judges. Maybe you even regret not having discouraged us from pursuing journalism and this profession in the past. But please, do not feel regret. Do not feel despair. You taught us from childhood that it’s wrong to lie, to steal, to slander others. That we must always speak the truth and act with integrity. I’m certain that every parent of those on trial here raised their children with the same values. We are your children. We are the people you raised. So when the verdict is read out, do not hang your heads. Hold them high.

Be proud that you do not have a child or family member who lies, steals from others, plunders public wealth, frames the innocent, or serves corruption. That, I believe, is the greatest source of pride and peace of mind. Everything will be okay. This, too, shall pass. So just as we keep smiling, you too should keep smiling.