Introduction

By 2012, Khadija Ismayilova had reported on her native Azerbaijan for 15 years—about business, politics, the economy, and lifestyle. Besides jobs at numerous local publications, she had worked at the Voice of America in Washington, DC, served as grants manager for an international media project, and run a training program in investigative journalism. In 2008, she joined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) as bureau chief for its Azerbaijani news service, based in the capital, Baku.

In 2010, she stepped down as bureau chief to return to reporting, and developed a professional relationship with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), with headquarters in Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina). With a colleague, she had just researched and published a breakthrough story on a bank secretly owned by one of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s daughters. Another exposé would follow within a year.

Azerbaijan was a semi-autocratic country with enormous oil wealth. One family had ruled on and off for decades. President Heydar Aliyev had led Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969-82 (when he was promoted to first deputy chair of the USSR council of ministers). The country became independent in December 1991 upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and Aliyev was elected president in October 1993. He served until 2003, when his son Ilham succeeded him. A period of quasi-liberalization of the press post-independence gave way under Aliyev fils to a pattern of harassment and even violence against critical journalists and publications.


Khadija Ismayilova

In March 2012, Ismayilova was in the early stages of researching a story about the links between Aliyev’s family and a new concert hall in Baku that would soon host the prestigious Eurovision song contest. The story was only one part of a larger expose of corruption within the Azerbaijani Energy Company (Azenco). But on March 7, an anonymous letter postmarked Moscow and addressed to Ismayilova arrived at her brother’s house. Inside the letter were graphic photographs of the reporter with her boyfriend. The photos were visibly stills from a videocamera installed in her bedroom. An accompanying letter warned her: “Whore, behave.”

Ismayilova was not easily scared. She had grown up the daughter of a government minister, part of the Azerbaijani elite. As host of a local radio talk show, she had earned a reputation, of which she was proud, as “a bitch.” But this threat was at a level new to her. First, it was clearly only a first demarche—the video was to follow. Second, it involved her family and her boyfriend. Azerbaijani journalists had died in the pursuit of lesser targets than the president. She had others to consider besides herself.

She had two decisions: how to respond to the blackmail threat, and what to do about her reporting project. Above all, knowing the pain it would cause her friends and family, she wanted to prevent release of the videotape. RFE/RL and OCCRP could give her advice. But the 37-year-old reporter would have to decide for herself what to do, and soon.