Shahla Kerim

Affiliated media: Freelance journalist

Incident date: December 4, 2023

Attack type:

• Short-term detention

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Turan.az

Location: Azerbaijan, Lankaran

Additional information:

Journalists Aytaj Mammadli and Shahla Kerim were detained in Lankaran while interviewing residents of the town and were subjected to psychological pressure by the executive and police. They were in Lankaran to prepare a report. The journalists had already been detained two days earlier at a local market. «We were told that we had violated the instruction not to film», — reported Shahla Kerim. After being detained, the women were taken to the Housing and Exploitation Department, where they were «dealt with» by Lankaran executive officials and police. «We were put under psychological pressure, demanded to say who sent us, that we were spies, etc. They deleted video recordings from Aytaj’s phone, they started to read the correspondence on WhatsApp on my phone, then took away the memory cards from the video cameras to delete the recordings. The cards were returned only after we called the head of the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Elshad Hajiyev», — Kerim said.