Political repressions in Azerbaijan, ten little indians

As in Agatha Christie's novel, in Azerbaijan opposition politicians, human and labor rights activists, journalists, scholars and academics continue to be victims of repression, one after another, with the substantial indifference of the international community

There are currently 357 political prisoners in the country. The list, updated in February 2025, includes civic activists, opposition politicians, rights defenders, labour rights activists, journalists, scholars, and academics. Four more civil society representatives have been arrested since, raising the number to 361.

In recent months, the authorities in Baku have also cancelled the accreditation of several international news outlets, including the BBC , Voice of America , Bloomberg , and Rossiya Segodnya , which operates the Sputnik and RIA Novosti news agencies.

Several UN agencies' operations have also been either reduced or suspended, including those of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), the UN Development Program (UNDP), and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

In a recent meeting with Gwi-Yeop Son, the UN Development Coordination Office’s Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jeyhun Bayramov emphasised Azerbaijan’s role as a “donor” rather than a “recipient” of support. As such, the time has come to “transform” the 33-year relationship with the UN agencies to “project-based cooperation”, taking into account “national priorities”.

In January 2025, the authorities officially announced the suspension of relations with USAID. The organisation's work had already been dormant since June 2024. In November 2023, allegations were levelled against the aid agency, describing it as the “substructure of the US Central Intelligence Agency”, financially supporting NGOs and other initiatives for purposes outside of USAID’s mandate – namely changing the leadership in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani family values, and of being sympathetic towards Armenia.

According to its now-defunct website, USAID provided $431 million in aid for development projects in the humanitarian and health sectors and economic and governance reform since 1991.

The repression against local civic groups has been much harsher. In the most recent wave of arrests, Bashir Suleymanli, the head of the Civil Rights Institute, and Alpay Mammadzada, the head of the Election Observation Alliance, were condemned to three months and 28 days in pre-trial detention. The two are accused of abuse of power, official forgery, and money laundering.

A group of independent lawyers from Azerbaijan opined that the arrests of Suleymanli, and Mammadzade come at a time of reactivation of an investigation launched in 2014 against non-governmental organisations under several articles of the criminal code, including illegal entrepreneurship (Articles 192.2.3), tax evasion in large amounts (Article 213.2.2), and abuse of power (Article 308.2).

The lawyers believe that while the 2014 investigation was terminated in relation to some NGOs in 2023, it continued for others. Suleymanli and Mammadzade’s arrests attest to this, “the broader investigation into the case has remained ongoing under covert investigative measures. In other words, the case was never fully closed, and Azerbaijani civil society has effectively remained under continuous criminal investigation since 2014”.

Between 2013 and 2014, authorities launched investigations against many local non-governmental organisations, activists, and journalists, landing many behind bars. Many pundits then likened the wave of purges to the depositions of the Stalin era in 1937. Ten years later, it suffices to say, the witch hunt then was just a testing ground for what was yet to come. Aliyev may not be Stalin, and this may not be 1937, but the script is clear.

The reopening of the criminal investigation signalsa further crackdown. Soon, however, there won’t be many left to target. Since 2023, the authorities in Baku have targeted journalists and independent news platforms, rights defenders, young scholars and peace activists, and political activists. For those familiar with Azerbaijan’s history of political repression, the wave of arrests and sentences, handed left and right specifically to members of civil society, is a familiar sight.

A decade of empty action plans

For much of the history of the crackdown, the EU institutions stuck to a “business as usual” approach when it concerned Azerbaijan, even when the country was one of the worst at implementing European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments.

In 2013, the Council of Europe, of which Azerbaijan has been a member since 2001 (and signed the European Convention on Human Rights as a condition for membership the same year), through its parliamentary arm – the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) – failed to vote on a resolution about political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Investigations later revealed that it was the doing of Caviar Diplomacy, a term coined by the European think tank European Stability Initiative.

A decade later, things may be changing. In its newsletter dated March 28, 2024, ESI wrote, “Ten years ago, [PACE] was dominated by Azerbaijan apologists”, who praised “fraudulent stolen elections as free and fair” and enjoyed regular invitations “to expensive hotels, showered with gifts, some receiving significant amounts of money”.

But although “PACE has changed dramatically” since 2017 and has even voted to suspend Azerbaijani delegations’ credentials in January 2024, the Council of Europe’s other pillars, like the Secretary-General and the Committee of Ministers, have shown little to no remorse.

Take National Action Plans or the Partnership for Good Governance , both of which, to one degree or another, aim to support legal reforms and combat corruption, promote human rights, freedom of expression and media, penitentiary system reforms, and more. Azerbaijan started implementing both in 2014.

The most recent Council of Europe Action Plan for Azerbaijan, dated 2022-2025, had an overall allocated budget of 9.6 million Euros. The previous two (2018-2021 and 2014-2017) totalled 20.5 million Euros.

For unclear reasons, the decade-plus of crackdown against independent media, censorship of journalists, restrictive new bills, evidence of torture and violation of fundamental human rights, and biased judiciary have not sufficed to convince the Council of Europe that these action plans have in fact failed.

A 2024 investigation by a consortium of international investigative journalists, Forbidden Stories, on grave violations in Azerbaijani prisons was also insufficient, and so were the most recent cases of torture and ill-treatment as documented by imprisoned Azerbaijani journalists.

The silence or rather business as usual modus operandi with countries like Azerbaijan greenlights authorities' unaccounted grip over power and the relentless crackdown on critics both at home and abroad. It also sets a dangerous precedent for other countries with similar or worse track records regarding human rights and freedoms.

The current working model also leaves those remaining out of physical prison cells unable to find employment or flee the country due to travel bans.

The consistent and deliberate dismantling of Azerbaijani civil society started many years ago, suppressing independent and critical voices. The question is, what will happen when no one is left?