Starving Imprisoned Director of Abzas Media Complains of Lack of Medical Care

Ulvi Hasanli, the director of Abzas Media

The health of Ulvi Hasanli, the director of Abzas Media who is on a hunger strike in prison, has deteriorated, and he is not receiving medical care, according to his relatives.

His wife, Rubaba Guliyeva, said that Hasanli's health continues to worsen. After 16 days of his hunger strike, he has lost 15 kg and now weighs 63 kg.

"During our meeting through a glass partition, Ulvi could barely stand," Guliyeva wrote on Facebook. "Ulvi is being treated inhumanely. In 40-degree heat, a person on a hunger strike is being held in a punishment cell with no windows or ventilation."

She continued, explaining that because of the conditions, Hasanli suffers from shortness of breath and a rapid heartbeat.

"His heart is beating so fast it feels like it's about to burst. As a result, his blood circulation has weakened, and not enough blood is reaching his heart, causing his legs to go numb. His body is covered in cold sweat, and he has kidney pain and low blood pressure," Guliyeva added.

She asserts that Hasanli is not receiving any medical supervision.

"The warden was given valerian tablets to give Ulvi two pills if his condition worsened. In essence, they are condemning Ulvi to a slow death," Guliyeva said.

According to his wife, family requests to transfer Hasanli to a prison hospital have gone unanswered.

On July 20, Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli announced a hunger strike to protest his transfer from Baku Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 to the Umbakı penitentiary complex. Hasanli is dissatisfied with the conditions at the Umbakı prison complex, where he is denied in-person visits with his family, including his three-year-old child.

Five employees of the online publication Abzas Media—director Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, translator Mohammed Kekalov, reporters Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova—as well as Hafiz Babaly, head of the economic department of the Turan news agency and an investigative journalist, were arrested between November 2023 and January 2024 on charges of currency smuggling. In June 2024, Farid Mehralizade, an economic columnist for the Azerbaijani service of "Radio Liberty," was also arrested in connection with the case.

Following the preliminary investigation in August 2024, the defendants were charged with six additional articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. They rejected the charges and stated that they were being prosecuted for their journalistic investigations.

On June 20, 2025, a court sentenced the journalists and staff of the Azerbaijani online publication Abzas Media to long prison terms. The director, Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, investigative journalist Hafiz Babaly, and economist Farid Mehralizade each received nine-year sentences. Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova were sentenced to eight years, and Mohammed Kekalov was sentenced to six and a half years.

The Abzas Media case marked the beginning of a series of arrests of independent media journalists in Azerbaijan starting in November 2023. Several criminal cases have been initiated in a similar manner, including the collective arrests of employees from independent online resources Toplum TV and Meydan TV.