They reported the truth about corruption in Azerbaijan. Now they’re in prison.

In Azerbaijan, a country run by an authoritarian regime, it has taken gumption and daring for the independent journalists of Abzas Media to report. The headlines on their website list revelatory exposés about the foreign minister’s family wealth; a village relocated because of the president’s son-in-law; and companies with millions in unpaid taxes winning billions in new contracts.

This month, the journalists paid a price for their audacity. President Ilham Aliyev, who has been in office since the death of his father, Heydar, in 2003 and who has never shown tolerance for...