NURLAN GAHRAMANLI

About Nurlan Gahramanli

Nurlan Gahramanli (known by his professional name Nurlan Libre) is an Azerbaijani journalist and activist, born on 5 March 1997. He attended secondary school in Sumgayit and, in 2016, graduated from the Azerbaijan College of Finance and Economics.He has been actively involved in civil society and journalism since 2017. From 2018 to 2020, Libre worked for various independent media outlets, including Kanal 13 and Azad Söz. He has contributed to Meydan TV, where he served as a presenter and social media manager, and to Toplum TV. His work focused on human rights and political issues. In January 2020, he founded The Orange Media (Portağal Media) and served as its Director until his arrest in February 2025.Throughout his career and peace activism, Libre faced a sustained campaign of persecution, including physical assault, repeated detentions, and threats aimed at silencing his reporting on human rights and political issues.During one such instance, at the 2018 National Revival Day demonstrations, Libre was arrested and fined by the Sabail Circuit Court in connection with his reporting for Kanal 13. Throughout 2019, he was repeatedly detained and faced physical assault from police and authorities while covering protests and events. The 2019 case concerning his 21-day administrative arrest for covering a protest later led to a 2023 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which found a violation of his rights.In another instance, in September 2019, he was attacked and beaten by police and private security staff while filming a group of Karabakh war veterans being assaulted by State Oil Company (SOCAR) security. He sustained a facial injury and was taken to the police station.His anti-war stance during the Azerbaijani–Armenian conflict led to further threats and summons from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2020. In December 2021, he placed a “headstone” in front of Parliament in protest against the new restrictive Media Law and declared that the media in the country was “dead” and that the law was turning the country into North Korea.In September 2023, he was kidnapped from his home, mistreated, and sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention for allegedly posting prohibited content online.In December 2023, the authorities arrested his media colleague from Kanal 11, and Gahramanli was informed that he would be the next person arrested. This forced him to flee Azerbaijan to Georgia and later to Turkey, where he remotely continued to manage his independent platform, The Orange Media (Portağal Media).^1,2,3,4