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Sunday, June 28
Global Free Speech

Georgian police detain a protester during a protest outside the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, Wednesday, March 8, 2023. Georgian authorities used tear gas and water cannon outside the parliament building in the capital Tuesday against protesters who oppose a proposed law some see as stifling freedom of the press. Photo by: AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze/Alamy The Georgian authorities were probably hoping their terrible treatment of exiled Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadigov would pass unnoticed. No such luck. Their hopes were dashed. The news of his deportation has started to spread. It all happened last Sunday, when Sadigov, who is the founder of Azerbaijani news outlet and YouTube channel Azel.tv, was sent back to Azerbaijan. Sadigov had been living in the Georgian capital Tbilisi since 2023, after he left having been persected in his home country for his journalism. The Georgian authorities had allowed him to stay but had then detained him so they could deport him, only letting him go a year ago, after an interim order by the European Court of Human Rights. His deportation when it came was swift. It followed an arrest at his home on charges of “insulting police” on social media (a new crime, resulting from changes to Georgian legislation in 2025). There was a hearing by a judge at 4am which lasted only a few hours. And then the judge ruled Sadigov be immediately sent back to Azerbaijan. He imposed a three-year re-entry ban. Hours later Sadigov found himself in Baku, where he was immediately arrested. We, and partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response, condemned his deportation here. I have never met Sadigov, but I met his wife and two young children in Tbilisi in October 2024 for a Council of Europe mission on media freedom in Georgia. At the time Afgan was in Georgian detention and I remember how exhausted she looked as she told us about him. Sadigov’s story is reflective of Georgia’s slide into autocracy. Gone are the days when the country could be considered a safe haven for journalists from neighbouring countries. Now it’s the place that deports journalists. It’s also about Azerbaijan. Sadigov had committed the cardinal sin there – reporting on corruption and social injustice – which led to multiple arrests. The most egregious was in 2020 when he was sentenced to seven years in jail. During a July 2021 appeal, his sentence was reduced to four years. He was later pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev. The situation in Azerbaijan is terrible. Hundreds of activists, academics and reporters are currently in jail and this week the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan rejected an appeal from journalists at the independent media outlet Azbas, who’ve been jailed for between seven and nine years. Nothing was fair about the hearing. I spoke to Gunel Safarova who is the acting director and editor-in-chief at Abzas Media. She told me about the immense pressures journalists face there. Many have left the profession altogether. The “space for free and critical reporting inside the country has been destroyed step by step”, she said, adding that “the law no longer feels like protection”. “When you see that the government can decide people’s fate and take years of their lives for their journalism, it destroys trust in justice even more. Maybe we already knew this in some way, but each case like this makes us lose whatever hope was still left, even the smallest hope that justice in our country could still mean something.” This is the country to which Sadigov has been returned, and even though he has apparently been released and spoken to his wife, they are not together and he is not safe. READ MORE

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Georgian police detain a protester during a protest outside the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, Wednesday, March 8, 2023. Georgian authorities used tear gas and water cannon outside the parliament building in the capital Tuesday against protesters who oppose a proposed law some see as stifling freedom of the press. Photo by: AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze/Alamy The Georgian authorities were probably hoping their terrible treatment of exiled Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadigov would pass unnoticed. No such luck. Their hopes were dashed. The news of his deportation has started to spread. It all happened last Sunday, when Sadigov, who is the founder of Azerbaijani news outlet and YouTube channel Azel.tv, was sent back to Azerbaijan. Sadigov had been living in the Georgian capital Tbilisi since 2023, after he left having been persected in his home country for his journalism. The Georgian authorities had allowed him to stay but had then detained him so they could deport him, only letting him go a year ago, after an interim order by the European Court of Human Rights. His deportation when it came was swift. It followed an arrest at his home on charges of “insulting police” on social media (a new crime, resulting from changes to Georgian legislation in 2025). There was a hearing by a judge at 4am which lasted only a few hours. And then the judge ruled Sadigov be immediately sent back to Azerbaijan. He imposed a three-year re-entry ban. Hours later Sadigov found himself in Baku, where he was immediately arrested. We, and partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response, condemned his deportation here. I have never met Sadigov, but I met his wife and two young children in Tbilisi in October 2024 for a Council of Europe mission on media freedom in Georgia. At the time Afgan was in Georgian detention and I remember how exhausted she looked as she told us about him. Sadigov’s story is reflective of Georgia’s slide into autocracy. Gone are the days when the country could be considered a safe haven for journalists from neighbouring countries. Now it’s the place that deports journalists. It’s also about Azerbaijan. Sadigov had committed the cardinal sin there – reporting on corruption and social injustice – which led to multiple arrests. The most egregious was in 2020 when he was sentenced to seven years in jail. During a July 2021 appeal, his sentence was reduced to four years. He was later pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev. The situation in Azerbaijan is terrible. Hundreds of activists, academics and reporters are currently in jail and this week the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan rejected an appeal from journalists at the independent media outlet Azbas, who’ve been jailed for between seven and nine years. Nothing was fair about the hearing. I spoke to Gunel Safarova who is the acting director and editor-in-chief at Abzas Media. She told me about the immense pressures journalists face there. Many have left the profession altogether. The “space for free and critical reporting inside the country has been destroyed step by step”, she said, adding that “the law no longer feels like protection”. “When you see that the government can decide people’s fate and take years of their lives for their journalism, it destroys trust in justice even more. Maybe we already knew this in some way, but each case like this makes us lose whatever hope was still left, even the smallest hope that justice in our country could still mean something.” This is the country to which Sadigov has been returned, and even though he has apparently been released and spoken to his wife, they are not together and he is not safe. READ MORE

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The Georgian authorities were probably hoping their terrible treatment of exiled Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadigov would pass unnoticed. No such luck. Their hopes were dashed. The news of his deportation has started to spread.

It all happened last Sunday, when Sadigov, who is the founder of Azerbaijani news outlet and YouTube channel Azel.tv, was sent back to Azerbaijan.

Sadigov had been living in the Georgian capital Tbilisi since 2023, after he left having been persected in his home country for his journalism. The Georgian authorities had allowed him to stay but had then detained him so they could deport him, only letting him go a year ago, after an interim order by the European Court of Human Rights.

His deportation when it came was swift. It followed an arrest at his home on charges of “insulting police” on social media (a new crime, resulting from changes to Georgian legislation in 2025).

There was a hearing by a judge at 4am which lasted only a few hours. And then the judge ruled Sadigov be immediately sent back to Azerbaijan. He imposed a three-year re-entry ban. Hours later Sadigov found himself in Baku, where he was immediately arrested. We, and partners of the Media Freedom Rapid Response, condemned his deportation here.

I have never met Sadigov, but I met his wife and two young children in Tbilisi in October 2024 for a Council of Europe mission on media freedom in Georgia. At the time Afgan was in Georgian detention and I remember how exhausted she looked as she told us about him.

Sadigov’s story is reflective of Georgia’s slide into autocracy. Gone are the days when the country could be considered a safe haven for journalists from neighbouring countries. Now it’s the place that deports journalists. It’s also about Azerbaijan. Sadigov had committed the cardinal sin there – reporting on corruption and social injustice – which led to multiple arrests. The most egregious was in 2020 when he was sentenced to seven years in jail. During a July 2021 appeal, his sentence was reduced to four years. He was later pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev.

The situation in Azerbaijan is terrible. Hundreds of activists, academics and reporters are currently in jail and this week the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan rejected an appeal from journalists at the independent media outlet Azbas, who’ve been jailed for between seven and nine years. Nothing was fair about the hearing.

I spoke to Gunel Safarova who is the acting director and editor-in-chief at Abzas Media. She told me about the immense pressures journalists face there. Many have left the profession altogether. The “space for free and critical reporting inside the country has been destroyed step by step”, she said, adding that “the law no longer feels like protection”.

“When you see that the government can decide people’s fate and take years of their lives for their journalism, it destroys trust in justice even more. Maybe we already knew this in some way, but each case like this makes us lose whatever hope was still left, even the smallest hope that justice in our country could still mean something.”

This is the country to which Sadigov has been returned, and even though he has apparently been released and spoken to his wife, they are not together and he is not safe.

Read the full article here

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Global Free Speech

Photo by: Stephen Barnes/Medical/Alamy UK news this week is dominated by a damning report led by senior midwife Donna Ockenden that reveals how more than 500 mothers and babies were harmed or died at maternity units in Nottingham. This isn’t the first scandal Ockenden has investigated. A few years back terrible failings were revealed in Shropshire hospitals run by the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust where 201 babies and nine mothers died.  We spoke to Ockenden for the magazine and she repeated this: “women aren’t listened to”. Another common thread was cover-up. Secrecy is not a one-off, it’s a pattern, wrote Martin Bright when he reported on the Shropshire scandal for Index. As Bright said, “this is not a historical story; it is an ongoing crisis”. Maternity scandals happen not only in Britain but all over the world. Last year’s protests in Morocco were ignited after eight women died in a maternity ward in Agadir because of severe medical neglect. In Egypt last week Omnia Sweidan, a former resident physician in obstetrics and gynaecology at Alexandria’s El-Shatby University Hospital, wrote a Facebook post detailing a series of abusive incidents faced by women at Alexandria’s Al-Shatby Hospital. It was read and shared by tens of thousands. Within 24 hours of posting, instead of the government declaring an investigation, security forces arrested Sweidan. While she was apparently later released, she’s been accused of spreading false news and misusing social media. She could end up in jail. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world – the figures of deaths and injuries are rising, but to what no one really knows. The Taliban won’t publish the data, probably to cover-up the true numbers. I’ve navigated maternity services myself in the UK. I’ve generally had good experiences and I’m very grateful to the NHS. But my experiences have not been uncomplicated – my daughter very nearly died. What saved her, I’ve been told, were a few factors – my race (white), my class (middle), where I live (London) and the fact that I relentlessly badgered those at my local hospital for weeks on end saying things didn’t feel right. Let me be clear here though: one shouldn’t have to be a dogged white Londoner to get good medical care. And a recent health committee report revealed terrible inequalities faced by people who are members of ethnic minorities, stating that “[B]abies that are Black or Black British Asian or Asian British have a more than 50% higher risk of perinatal mortality”. At Index we typically work on stories where dissidents take on the powerful: leaders, oligarchs and tech bros. The victims of maternity care scandals might not appear the same. But there is much that unites them. At the end of the day if the response you get from a doctor or nurse to a basic medical request is a shrug or a sneer, your free speech is being violated. If the systems view calls for accountability as dissent that must be silenced, then they are censoring. We grew up being told we’re lucky, that childbirth was one of the leading causes of death before the advent of modern medicine. For many of us that’s true. Just not all of us. That’s a travesty demanding urgent attention – in Nottingham and beyond. READ MORE

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