KHAYALA AGHAYEVA

News journalist working for Meydan TV; imprisoned under bogus charges.

About Khayala Aghayeva

Khayala Aghayeva is a well-known news reporter and women’s rights activist. She was born in Baku on 18 January 1997. She graduated from the Communication College. Her studies at Baku State University at the Faculty of Journalism remain unfinished.

Aghayeva has been working in the field since at least 2015. She worked for Germany-based Meydan TV, one of Azerbaijan’s most important independent news outlets, before she was arrested. She covered various topics, including corruption, human rights, and politics. Meydan TV has been under constant pressure. In 2014, it closed its office in Azerbaijan and has had its website blocked in the country since 2017.¹

The criminal persecution that started in December 2024 was not the first instance of government-led harassment against Aghayeva. In 2018, state security services are said to have kidnapped Aghayeva and held her for five days. This was an early example of using direct physical force against her. In early 2019, the surveillance worsened when independent investigations found that she could have been a target of Pegasus spyware. This showed that high-level, sophisticated state monitoring was keeping an eye on her activities. In 2020, her Facebook account was hacked. After this attack, there was extensive gender-based harassment in 2020 and 2021. This included leaking and re-sharing private life photos and videos in Telegram groups, which was meant to harm her reputation and put psychological pressure on her and other female activists.^2,³

Case description

The Baku Main Police Department arrested Khayala Aghayeva on 6 December 2024 on charges of smuggling foreign currency. On that day, she was one of many journalists and media workers from Meydan TV and related groups who were arrested. Others included Natig Javadli, Aytaj Ahmadova (Tapdig), Aynur Elgunesh (Ganbarova), Aysel Umudova, Ramin Jabrayilzade (Deko), and Ulvi Tahirov.⁴

Following her arrest, she was kept in the police department overnight and questioned without her lawyer present. Lawyers who were trying to represent their clients in the Meydan TV case said they had to wait between one and five hours to meet their clients on the day of arrest. Reportedly, the police used “psychological pressure to obtain statements,” which was an attempt to force Aghayeva to talk, but she resisted. In addition, the authorities searched her home and seized professional and personal electronic devices that were important to her work as a journalist, such as a laptop, a phone, and cameras.

Aghayeva and her detained co-workers were first charged with smuggling by a group of people by prior conspiracy. On 8 December 2024, two days after her arrest, the Khatai District Court remanded Aghayeva to four months of pre-trial detention. This term was prolonged several times, with defence motions to transfer Aghayeva to house arrest denied. She was placed in Baku Pre-trial Detention Centre No. 1.

On 28 August 2025, the investigation aggravated the charges. Aghayeva and nine other journalists were charged with seven more crimes, bringing the total number of criminal charges against them to eight, including tax evasion, money laundering, forgery of documents, and use of forged documents. This escalation greatly increased the possible legal punishment. If found guilty, Aghayeva risks spending up to 12 years in prison.⁵

On 12 December 2025, the Baku Court of Serious Crimes started the trial in the case against Germany-based Meydan TV.⁶

References

Resources about Khayala Aghayeva

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