Xədicə İsmayılova

Xədicə İsmayılova (2016)

Xədicə İsmayılova (2016)

Xədicə Rövşən qızı İsmayılova [ xædiːˈdʒæ rœvˈʃæn qɯzɯ ismɑˈjɯlovɑ ] (internationally known as English Khadija Ismayilova , German: Chadidscha Ismajilowa; born May 27, 1976 in Baku ) is an Azerbaijani journalist who is committed to corruption and abuse in her country. In 2017 she received the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) “for her courageous exposure of corruption at the highest level of government, which also brought her to prison”.

Life

Xədicə İsmayılova was born in Baku in 1976 as the daughter of a government official and an engineer. After graduating from school, she studied Turkish Studies at the Baku State University since 1992 . After graduating in 1997, she worked as a translator and journalist for the newspapers Zerkalo and Caspian Business News and for the Voice of America radio station . Since 2010 she has headed the Azerbaijani editorial team of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty .

Since 2012 İsmayılova has published research on corruption and unclean business dealings in President İlham Əliyev's family , including the acquisition of the country's most important telecommunications company and the financing of the construction of the concert hall for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku.

In 2012, she was blackmailed through film footage showing her having sex with her boyfriend in her bedroom. She was threatened with releasing the pictures if she did not stop her activities. Not being intimidated, the video was posted on the Internet soon after. The authors could not be determined.

In 2013, she was sentenced to community service after refusing to pay a fine for attending an unauthorized demonstration. Xədicə İsmayılova was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in September 2015. In 2016, she was released after international protests and her sentence was commuted to three and a half years suspended sentence.

Xədicə İsmayılova is one of the sharpest critics of President Əliyev's regime in Azerbaijan today.

In November 2017, their accounts in Azerbaijan were blocked following a court ruling. She was not allowed to travel to Stockholm to be awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize on December 1, as her travel ban was still in place.

Awards

• 2012: Free Media Award from the ZEIT Foundation
  • Courage of Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Federation
• 2013: Global Shining Light Award
• 2015: Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award from the PEN Center of the USA
• 2016: Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize of UNESCO
  • Nomination for the Raif Badawi Award of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
  • 100 Women of the BBC
  • Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch
• 2017: Right Livelihood Award
• 2020: Prize for the freedom and future of the media

Web links

• Portrait at rightlivelihoodaward.org (English)
• Claudia von Salzen: Azerbaijan's bravest journalist in the Tagesspiegel prison on December 10, 2014
• Khadija Ismayilova Amnesty International (PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alternative Nobel Prize awarded , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, September 26, 2017, accessed on September 26, 2017
2. ↑ Khadija Ismayilova: A headache for Azerbaijan government at the BBC
3. ↑ Investigative Journalism - Alternative Nobel Prize for Khadija Ismayilova ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Deutschlandfunk, November 27, 2017 (audio) 
4. ↑ Khadija Ismayilova is not allowed to accept the Alternative Nobel Prize from Deutsche Welle on November 24, 2017
5. ↑ Anti-corruption research is the reason for my arrest at the Konrad Naumann Foundation
6. ^ The bravest female journalists in the Islamic world ZEIT from July 11, 2016
7. ↑ Go where it hurts. Retrieved June 25, 2020 .