Ikram Rafig oglu Rahimov

Affiliated media: realliq.info, Manager

Incident date: June 12, 2019

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Qafqazinfo

Location: Azerbaijan, Baku

Additional information:

Ikram Rafigoglu, head of the realliq.info news portal, was arrested for "extortion". Rafigoglu was detained in 2018. In 2019, the Baku Court for Serious Crimes sentenced Ikram Rafigoglu to 5 years and 6 months in prison under Article 182 (extortion) of the Criminal Code. At the time of his arrest, the journalist was in the spotlight for harshly critical articles against former Azerbaijani presidential aide Ali Gasanov. These articles chastised the government's policy towards the media, for which Gasanov is thought to be responsible. Rafigoglu was arrested hours after posting an open letter to Ali Gasanov on his website. He dismissed all charges in his trial and said that he had been arrested for articles about Gasanov. Subsequently, the high court reduced his sentence to three years.