FATIMA MOVLAMLI

Political activist and freelance journalist; worked with various independent media outlets like Jam News, Mikroskop Media, and Meydan TV

About Fatima Movlamli

Born and raised in Azerbaijan, Fatima Movlamli, 24, is an independent journalist and political activist. She was born on 3 November 2000 and studied theatre. During her studies, she became interested in political activism and reporting.She started her career in journalism when she was 17 years old. She has collaborated with several independent media outlets, including Meydan TV, Jam News, and Mikroskop Media. Her independent work focused on providing citizens with a complete view of events, contrasting with the one-sided information often presented by state media in Azerbaijan. She frequently covered rallies, protests, and political events, including demonstrations by mothers of soldiers killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She has been repeatedly subjected to physical violence by police in connection with her professional activities, often being detained and physically assaulted at police stations, with officers explicitly telling her she had “no right to work as a journalist” under the new media legislation, vividly illustrating the state’s efforts to criminalise her professional activities.Movlamli has been a vocal opponent of Azerbaijan’s restrictive Media Legislation, which she and her colleagues argue is designed to legally restrict the work of independent journalists by requiring registration in a state-controlled registry, a process she publicly refuses to comply with. For this activism, she has faced a long history of intense persecution. In 2019, she was reportedly kidnapped and held incommunicado for five days by police officers who physically abused her and threatened her with rape. During these days, she was stripped, filmed, and assaulted, with threats of retaliation if she shared her torture and ill-treatment experience publicly. In 2019 and 2021, she was the target of severe, gender-based smear campaigns involving the hacking and leaking of intimate private content. Movlamli was named among those targeted by Pegasus spyware.¹

Case description

On 28 February 2025, Azerbaijani authorities arrested Movlamli in connection with the widespread crackdown on Meydan TV. She was detained near a metro station in Baku by plain-clothes police officers. Reports say law enforcement used physical violence against her during the arrest, causing serious health complications for Movlamli. Without showing identification, the officers immediately handcuffed her. They neither introduced themselves nor explained her rights before forcing her into a car with two officers (one of whom was a woman). The arrest was later confirmed by the Internal Affairs Ministry’s press service. Authorities raided her home, where they allegedly seized €2,000 and electronic devices belonging to both Movlamli and her sister. The family later denied that the money belonged to Movlamli.Initially, investigative authorities charged her under Criminal Code Article 206.3.2 for smuggling foreign currency committed by a group acting in collusion. On 1 March 2025, the Khatai District Court in Baku remanded her to pre-trial detention for one month and nine days. A few days later, on 6 March 2025, the Baku City Court of Appeal upheld this decision. In the following months, her pre-trial detention was prolonged several times.On 28 August 2025, along with other co-defendants in the Meydan TV case, Movlamli was indicted on seven additional charges, including illegal entrepreneurship (Articles 192.2.2 and 192.2.3), legalisation of property obtained through criminal means (money laundering) (Articles 193-1.3.1 and 193-1.3.2), smuggling committed by an organised group (Article 206.4), tax evasion committed by an organised group (Article 213.2.1), and forgery and use of forged documents (Articles 320.1 and 320.2).Fatima Movlamli is currently detained in the Baku Pre-trial Detention Centre No. 1. Under pre-trial detention, she has reported serious health issues caused by the violence she experienced during her arrest.^2,^3,^4,^5,⁶

The criminal trial against Fatima Movlamli began in December 2025 in the Baku Court for Serious Crimes. At preparatory hearings, judges denied defence motions to drop the charges or release her. Later, at the 16 January 2026 hearing, Movlamli protested the arbitrary detention of her co-defendants, calling on the judges to halt the politically motivated persecution.⁷

References

Resources about Fatima Movlamli

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