Fatima Movlamli writes: “Freedom – One Year Behind”

Fatima Movlamli

Fatima Movlamli, a journalist detained under the “Meydan TV case,” has written a piece from the Baku Pre-trial Detention Center regarding the anniversary of her arrest. We present the text as follows:

“The final days of February 2025. The second wave of arrests in the ‘Meydan TV case’ has just begun. My name is mentioned in articles circulated by government media (APA, Report, Baku TV, etc.) on orders, calling me a smuggler and a member of a criminal group. Everything is clear; it is my turn to be arrested.

I remember my last days of freedom well: I worked with great effort, not only finishing today's work but even doing tomorrow's work today. ‘Time is short, prepare one more reportage’ – this was the sentence I repeated to myself most often during those days. Every report could be the last.

Finally, on the morning of February 28, I reached the mental boundary of my freedom and was arrested. Events unfolded very quickly: masked agents surround you, handcuffs are placed on your wrists without any explanation, a staged search operation is organized, money is planted under your pillow, the trial is the next day, a ‘marionette’ in a robe carries out the order, and there you go—you are imprisoned…

Remembering the day I was detained and the night I spent in the Temporary Detention Center, I recall these words of Nelson Mandela, who wrote about his own arrest: ‘At least tonight I would not have to worry about whether the police would find me. They had already found me.’ Indeed, it was exactly like that. I felt as if I had been released into freedom after being arrested. Because I had been living under tension for a long time, planning my daily life while factoring in the possibility of arrest.

Today, one year has passed since that time. I have been held in the Baku Pre-trial Detention Center for the last year. I must say that from the very first day I arrived at the detention center, one thing became crystal clear to everyone here regarding me: I am spiritually free. Arrest and isolation do not seem like events terrible enough to ruin my mood. Many people in the detention center—both staff and prisoners—often ask me: why is your mood always so good? I don’t have the opportunity to ‘search’ on ‘Google’ now to clarify whether I have used this expression before or not, but the answer has always been the same: I chose this arrest and the deprivation that comes with it myself. When I was free and heard news of every subsequent journalist’s arrest, I was well aware that I was taking another step closer to the iron bars. In return, I became more devoted to my work and tried to produce the best results I could. It was my love and loyalty to my profession and my principles, which stand above everything else, that accelerated my arrest. I state with an open heart that I regret nothing and am not disappointed. So much so that today, as I complete my first year in prison, if someone were to say ‘here’s to many more such years,’ I would say ‘amen’ with a smiling face.

My only wish is to be a part of the struggle for the liberation of the independent press from the yoke, to be able to contribute to it, and to deliver the truth to the people. If in return for this I had to be separated from my home, my family, and ultimately my freedom for a period, I agreed to that.

Even after being arrested, my faith in a future—a good future—has not faded. I know that the darkness of the night is the herald of the dawn that follows. One simply needs to know that light exists behind the darkness, to believe in it, and to drive despair seven villages away. As said in a poem by Saadat Jahangir:

“In these dry seasons

Where the trees of freedom have not yet sprouted,

Just because our lips are cracked

Rainy clouds have not vanished,

Nor has the sky sunk into the depths of the earth.

The horizons are still blue, the moon is alive,

The stars are perfectly sound

And know that, from your hands bled in iron shackles,

Stung by bitter thorns,

In the name of humanity

A country like a rose garden will be built.”

Fatima Movlamli

Baku Pre-trial Detention Center