Avaz Zeynalli

Zeynalli died on 28 September 2026 at the age of 56. He had been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer while imprisoned in 2025 and had been released early on health grounds that April. After treatment in Turkey his health deteriorated; he underwent surgery in Baku on 22 September. Lawyer Rashad Vagifoglu announced the death on social media, and AzerNews and other Azerbaijani outlets reported it the same day. The cause was cancer.

Avaz Tapdig oglu Zeynalli was born on 1 January 1970 in Aghbulag, in the Goycha district of what was then the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1988, amid rising ethnic conflict, he was deported from Armenia with other ethnic Azerbaijanis. He served in the Soviet army from 1988 to 1990.

While studying in Turkey he published the magazine Boyuk Gelecek (Great Future). He enrolled at the Faculty of Law at Ankara University in 1991, graduated in 1999, and returned to Azerbaijan to work for newspapers including Gunaydin, P.S. and Milletın Sesi, and later as editor-in-chief of Vetendas Hemreyliyi (Civic Solidarity).

In 2002 Zeynalli founded the newspaper Xural and became its editor-in-chief. From 2010 he also managed xural.org as a platform for independent reporting. He expanded into broadcasting as head of the Xural Media Group and founder of Xural TV, hosting Siyaset Meydani. His reporting focused on official corruption and abuse of power.

He also translated books into Azerbaijani, including Daniel Yergin's The Prize, and campaigned for a National Lovers' Day in Azerbaijan linked to 30 June. During an earlier imprisonment he wrote a multi-volume prison diary titled Selcanın Memleketi (Selcan's Homeland).

Zeynalli was married to Melahat Zeynalli, a journalist. The couple had two daughters. In his final illness she publicly appealed for intensified treatment and state support, and spoke to Azerbaijani media about his condition after surgery in September 2026.

Zeynalli is remembered as one of the most persistent independent voices in Azerbaijani media in the early twenty-first century, and as a figure whose repeated prosecutions became a reference point for international press freedom advocacy. The European Court of Human Rights ruling on his first detention underscored the link between his journalism and the state's response. Colleagues and rights groups have framed his career as an example of the personal cost of critical reporting in Azerbaijan.