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Amal Clooney has ‘sparked grumblings’ in Azerbaijan over her offer to defend the investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova before the European Court of Human Rights. Azerbaijani media, which often do PR hit-jobs for the government, claim that Clooney is Armenian and a Turkophobe, EurasiNet.org writes.

The fact that Clooney is actually of Lebanese extraction matters little for Azerbaijan’s pro-government media, known for its time-honoured tradition of blaming various woes on the country’s neighbour, Armenia, with which Azerbaijan is in a conflict, the website points out.

Earlier, Amal Clooney, a famous lawyer and Hollywood star George Clooney’s wife, had told the American TV channel NBC about her wish to defend the journalist before the ECHR. Clooney introduced Ismayilova as ‘a courageous woman’ who ‘exposed the evidence of corruption by the ruling regime and has been subjected to various types of persecution.’

OOCRP notes that Clooney has taken up several high-profile cases at the ECHR in the past. Previous clients include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko, and former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed.

Turan agency reports that the ECHR initiated communication on Ismayilova’s two applications. Fariz Namazli, the journalist’s lawyer, told the agency that Ismayilova’s defamation applications over the violation of the Article 8 (Right to respect for private life), Article 10 (Freedom of expression) and Article 13 (Right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights had been submitted to the Court on 26 September 2013 and 31 July 2014.

According to Minval.az, the newspaper Azadlig reported that Ismayilova’s lawyer said the journalist agreed to accept Clooney’s offer because she highly values her courage in Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy’s defence when he was detained in Egypt. Clooney will represent the Azerbaijani journalist in Strasbourg with the director of Media Legal Defence Initiative, Nani Jansen.

Another joint third party intervention in Ismayilova’s case was submitted  on 19 January by the right groups ARTICLE 19, PEN International, International Media Support (IMS), the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who described the case as a ‘pattern of systematic repression of fundamental rights.’

Fariz Namazli, the lawyer, told the website Caucasian Knot that the officials of the women’s colony No 4, where Khadija Ismayilova is serving her term, violated the secrecy of correspondence, connected with the defence of her rights in the ECHR. Namazli visited his defendant in the colony on January 21, yet the officials of the facility did not allow him to take the documents over the communication of her three applications to the meeting.

“We planned to discuss those materials with Khadija to prepare answers at the ECHR. However, the officials of the colony demanded to provide a translation of the documents from English into Azerbaijani, as well as a notary’s confirmation of the translation. We do not need a translation as Khadija speaks English, while the personnel’s demand to get to know the contents is illegal. Besides, the translation of the documents is an extra waste of time and money,” Fariz Namazli told Caucasian Knot. “The lawyer and defendant’s discussion of the documents, as well as their communication in general, is confidential. The personnel of the penitentiary facility attempts to violate this confidentiality, which is illegal.”

He told the website about his intention to appeal to the administration of the Penitentiary service with the request to remove the obstacles so that Islamiyola is able to familiarise herself with the documents connected with her application to the ECHR. In case this request remains unaddressed, the lawyer said the defence would sue them.

He added that Khadija Ismayilova commented on the information circulated by the Azerbaijani media about Amal Clooney being of Armenian origin. “Khadija does not think about Clooney’s ethic background. She believes that normal people do not ask questions about someone’s origin and do not wonder ‘where are you from.’ Khadija has not asked anyone such questions in Azerbaijan, and does not see a necessity to ask such questions about Amal, either,” Namazli said. 

On 1 September 2015, Baku Court of Grave Crimes handed down a 7.6 years prison sentence to the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova. The court found her guilty of the Articles 179 (embezzlement and misappropriation), 192 (illegal business), 213 (tax evasion) and 308 (abuse of power) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Ismayilova was cleared from the article 125 (incitement to commit suicide) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. Earlier, the public prosecutor, Ramazan Hadiyev, had claimed 9 years of imprisonment for Khadija Ismayilova. The journalist was detained on 5 December 2014, which was followed by a wave of condemning statements by a number of international organisations and influential representatives from various states, who claimed her arrest was politically motivated.