Mahammad Kekalov, a social entrepreneur arrested in connection with the “Abzas Media case,” delivered his final courtroom statement on 20 June.

He was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison.

The full text of his final statement:

First, let us get to know Mahammad Kekalov.

Mahammad Kekalov is a 24-year-old young man who received his education in America.

Mahammad Kekalov is an organiser of socio-political and social entrepreneurship events in 22 countries around the world.

Mahammad Kekalov is the first person to defend an academic thesis on social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan’s higher education institutions. 

Mahammad Kekalov is an international champion of social entrepreneurship and startup competitions held in Germany, the UK, and the United States - he keeps a cupboard full of trophies and medals at home.

Mahammad Kekalov is the author of the most successful and most profitable social entrepreneurship initiatives in Azerbaijan.

He is a young person who is, unfortunately, more useful and exemplary for society than 98.9% of modern Azerbaijani youth.

Dear members of the court, honourable judge!

Please accept a small gift from me. It’s nothing special, just an ordinary book, with lines and verses between its pages. It is 1984, a novel by the English writer George Orwell. I’m giving it to you so that, as you read it, you can vividly picture what is truly happening, even though you already know. My brother Heydar bought it with money he earned from his work, it is not contraband.

At Abzas Media, as has been said, I only did a couple of minor translation tasks. Before I got to know Abzas, and during the Abzas period, I was involved in social entrepreneurship. Since I was 18, I’ve been running business projects with people with disabilities. I had a stable income. The projects I authored myself kept me more than busy. I had neither the need nor the time to hold any position at Abzas Media. Because I was friends with Ulvi, I occasionally found time to help him. Before me, he had others do translations as well. If he can’t properly learn English in prison, he’ll just find another translator when he gets out. But now, because I felt sorry and translated three things, you’re calling this smuggling? Was I smuggling words from one dictionary to another?

If I had wanted to smuggle something, I would have. And I would have done it in such a way that I wouldn’t have been caught. I’ve seen enough places to more or less know how it works. I could have just stayed in America, where I go once a year anyway to travel and never come back here.

Since my arrest, everyone keeps telling me, “You should have stayed. You shouldn’t have come back. You were foolish to return.” Even during the investigation, when I was being questioned, Samir Ismayilov, an investigator at the Baku City Police Department, asked me about the ways to leave Azerbaijan. How to get a visa, how to stay abroad, how to live there, and so on.

But I am the real owner of this country. Young people like me are. And we are not going to abandon it and leave it in the hands of a bunch of ignorant people.

But if you’re saying that I’m a smuggler, then you should also arrest those who transferred money to me. One of them is the Youth Foundation of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In one of the previous hearings, you mentioned Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is in the middle, on the left side of the map. It was the Youth Foundation that sent me there. I traveled with them. Does that mean the Youth Foundation is financing Abzas Media? If our intention was smuggling, then bring them in and put them on trial too.

Or take a German company - Ottobock. They sell wheelchairs. We worked together for a while. Go and arrest them too, for allegedly financing Abzas Media.

As you’ve heard, I’m not denying that I received money. I did. I sat down, and the money was transferred to my account at the Zaqatala branch of the International Bank of Azerbaijan - an account I opened with the blessing of the State Tax Service. You cannot seize this money. But if you do, I ask that all the taxes and state social insurance payments I’ve made since I was 18, since 2019 be returned to me. Do you deduct unemployment insurance from laundered money?

In any case, the verdict you deliver today holds no significance for me and, more importantly, from a historical perspective, it means nothing. These handcuffs are temporary. Sooner or later, they will be removed. But then there are the invisible handcuffs. In Azerbaijan, there are officials, there are ministers whose handcuffs are for life. Time will tell who is the judge and who is the prisoner.

A person says their final words when they leave this world. That final word usually begins with “farewell.” In that sense, I don’t want to call this my final statement. There’s something else I don’t want: whether it’s Abzas Media or Real TV, whether it’s Azerbaijan or America, I’ve always stood up for my rights and never stayed silent in the face of injustice. Neither those present here, nor you, should think that I will remain silent in the face of an unjust verdict. On the contrary, I’m glad to have gained the experience of prison. I speak out when resistance matters. I’m not upset with you for driving me into the valley. I understand, sometimes, yogurt just has to be black.

That is why I will not say my final word, because what I have to say has no end, and my thoughts have no end. Even if my body is not free, my mind, my spirit, and my ideas are freer and more independent than ever before.

This is also the reason I have not reacted to this verdict with the kind of protest some might expect. Protest is only meaningful when it has the power to produce results. 

Today, the only point I strongly object to is this: that the representatives of the judiciary - the very institution meant to uphold the rule of law sitting in this courtroom, have failed to issue an independent and impartial verdict based on their conscience and the trust of the people, within the framework of the law.