RFE/RL’s Baku Bureau has been raided by members of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor’s Office, who have ordered employees to leave the building and for work to be terminated.

Kenan Aliyev, the director of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, says at least 10 members of the Prosecutor’s Office entered the office at 10:30 a.m. local time accompanied by armed police officers.

Prosecutors said they had a court order authorizing a search of the bureau in connection with an ongoing investigation of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service as a foreign-funded entity.

They have reportedly demanded access to a safe holding bureau documents and personnel files, and have threatened to confiscate all computers.

They have also ordered staff members to leave the premises after holding them in a room for several hours without telephone or computer access.

Only the bureau chief, two employees, and a lawyer currently remain inside with prosecutors.

Prosecutors said the bureau’s work was to be terminated, but did not specify for how long.

Azerbaijani prosecutors have staged similar raids in recent months on other so-called foreign entities, including nongovernmental organizations such as IREX, the National Democratic Institute, and Oxfam.

All three NGOs were subsequently shut down. IREX, which operates in 125 countries promoting democratic reforms, became the latest to close down operations in September after Azerbaijani authorities froze its bank assets as part of what it called a “criminal investigation.”

The RFE/RL bureau raid comes three weeks after Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and contributor to RFE/RL, was jailed in Baku on charges related to her work.

Ismayilova is currently being held on two months’ pretrial detention on criminal charges of inciting a former RFE/RL contributor to attempt suicide.

Ismayilova’s supporters have rejected the charges as politically motivated. Amnesty International has declared Ismayilova a prisoner of conscience, “detained solely for exercising her right to freedom of expression.”

On December 17, the Baku prosecutor’s office delivered a letter to RFE/RL’s Baku bureau, requesting employment and salary information about both Ismayilova and the colleague in questions.

It also requested the names of all bureau employees, including freelancers, for possible questioning in connection with the case.

Kenan Aliyev said the December 26 raid is part of an ongoing harassment campaign aimed at shutting down the bureau, which is one of the last remaining sources of independent news in the autocratic country:

“The operation of our bureau is paralyzed in Baku,” he said. “There has been a long ongoing crackdown on the media and NGO’s in Azerbaijan including the arrest of Khadija Ismayilova, the host of our show and our contributor. We view this as part of this ongoing campaign against independent media.”

Earlier in December, Ramiz Mehdiyev, the chief of staff of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, issued a 60-page statement accusing Ismayilova of displaying a “destructive attitude toward well-known members of the Azerbaijani community” and accusing RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service of working “for a foreign secret service.”

Mehdiyev has also praised the recent jailing of other Azerbaijani journalists and activists, including Leyla Yunus, the director of the of the Institute of Peace of Democracy and a vocal critic of Aliyev’s human rights record.

Yunus, 59, and her husband, Arif, have both been held in pretrial detention since July and August, respectively, on charges of treason and other crimes.

Leyla Yunus, who suffers from diabetes and kidney disease, has complained of physical abuse and denial of medical treatment while in detention. Her lawyers say she is in dangerously ill heath.

The West has criticized what is seen as a growing crackdown on government critics in energy-rich Azerbaijan.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski told RFE/RL last week that Washington has been involved in “very serious discussions” with Azerbaijani officials about the recent detentions of the Yunuses, Ismayilova, and others.

Malinowski said U.S. officials have made clear that Azerbaijan’s relationship with the United States is “jeopardized by the crackdown on civil society.”