Associate Scholar Arzu Quoted in US News on Release of Azeri Journalist

Mehman became a journalist when Azerbaijan was still part of the Soviet Union. In May 1990, just a year before Azerbaijan declared its independence, Mehman and a group of journalists founded Turan on a shoestring.

In its early years, Mehman “sold lots of his belongings just to keep Turan alive,” said Raufoglu.

“He was such a humble person,” he said. “That was one of the reasons why I was always around him.”

Mehman’s arrest and the tax probe launched against Turan quickly turned into an “international scandal,” said Arzu Geybullayeva, an Azerbaijani journalist in self-imposed exile after she was threatened on social media.

“Turan and Mehman in particular, he has a very strong reputation abroad,” she told CNS.