Architecture of Repression: The Case of Azerbaijan
Introduction & Methodology
Introduction
This report examines the situation of civil society in Azerbaijan, including political parties, non-governmental organisations, academia, media, independent civic initiatives and grassroots activism, in the context of an increasingly restrictive political environment. It focuses on how the civic space for independent public activity has been systematically dismantled and nearly eradicated.
The situation of political prisoners is examined using a list of sixty-five cases prepared by Free Voices Collective e.V.1 The list was compiled based on Council of Europe standards and recommendations concerning political prisoners, including the criteria reflected in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Resolution 1900 (2012) on the definition of political prisoners.2 Under these standards, a person deprived of their personal liberty may be considered a political prisoner where their detention violates fundamental rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights; is imposed for political reasons, without connection to any offence; is clearly disproportionate to the alleged offence in its duration or conditions; is, for political motives, discriminatory as compared with the detention of other persons; or results from clearly unfair proceedings that appear to be connected with the political motives of the authorities.
The report uses these cases not only to present individual instances of politically motivated imprisonment, but also to examine how repression is organised across different sectors of Azerbaijani society. It follows a grouping similar to the structure used in the political prisoners list prepared by the Union for the Freedom for Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan.3
Political imprisonment is only one visible element of a broader architecture of control in Azerbaijan. This system actively targets any activity advancing democracy through a wider system of legal, administrative, digital, and financial restrictions.
Therefore, the report goes beyond listing prisoners and examines the architecture of repression, specifically how different peaceful groups are constructed, categorised, criminalised, and connected to one another through specific legal mechanisms and political narratives. In many cases, the charges formally used by the authorities appear ordinary and non-political, including smuggling, illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion, drug possession, hooliganism, treason, or other criminal-law provisions. The charges have no direct link to the individual’s activities. However, when examined in context, these charges reveal a recognisable pattern. For instance, people with higher public visibility, professional status, or institutional links are often framed through white-collar or financial crimes, while grassroots activists and socially more vulnerable defendants are more often associated with stigmatising accusations such as drug possession, hooliganism, or public disorder. Well-known opposition figures are frequently portrayed not simply as political opponents, but as fraudulent, deceptive, or morally compromised actors, sometimes through the use of false witnesses and politically motivated complainants. These recurring patterns suggest that the aim is not only to punish individuals but also to undermine their credibility, distance them from their communities, and recast legitimate criticism or activism as a form of wrongdoing in the public eye.
The report does not claim that all people imprisoned in Azerbaijan on politically motivated grounds are necessarily included in the present list. Political imprisonment is difficult to document in a closed and repressive environment, especially where families fear retaliation, lawyers face pressure, trials are not fully public and official information is limited or unreliable. The list should therefore be understood as a documented and legally assessed body of cases that demonstrates the scale and structure of politically motivated imprisonment, rather than as an exhaustive final count.
Methodology
The methodology used to compile and assess the list is legal, case-based and contextual. Each case was reviewed according to the Council of Europe criteria for political imprisonment, with attention to the person’s public activity, the timing and circumstances of arrest, the nature and proportionality of the charges, the conduct of the investigation and the broader political context. The assessment also considers whether the case forms part of a recurring pattern of politically selective prosecution, rather than treating the formal criminal charge as sufficient evidence of ordinary criminal liability.
The report also draws on publicly available information from international human rights organisations, media freedom groups, Council of Europe institutions, election-monitoring bodies and Azerbaijani civil society sources. These materials are used to verify and contextualise individual cases and situate them within wider developments, including the post-2020 consolidation of authoritarian rule, restrictive legislation affecting the media, political parties, and civil society and the deterioration of judicial independence and fair-trial guarantees.
The period covered by this report is shaped by the political developments that followed the 2020 Second Karabakh War and intensified after 2022. The report pays particular attention to the renewed wave of arrests from 2023 onward, and compares it to the earlier crackdown of 2013–2014. That comparison is important because many of the current legal tools and methods, such as the criminalisation of NGO work, the use of economic charges against activists, pressure on lawyers, politically selective investigations and the portrayal of independent civil society as foreign-controlled or illegal, were already in use a decade ago. What distinguishes the current period is the broader post-war political climate, the near-total securitisation of dissent and the expansion of repression into almost all remaining spaces of independent public life.
The central argument of this report is that the current political prisoner cases are not isolated abuses, but symptoms of a deliberate system of authoritarian control. Through criminal prosecution, smear campaigns, and pressure on families and lawyers, the authorities have sought to weaken civil society, neutralise political opposition and prevent public criticism. The cases reviewed in this report show how the criminal justice system functions both as a tool of authoritarian control and as a mechanism for producing political meanings: who is presented as corrupt, who is presented as dangerous, who is presented as socially deviant and who is presented as an enemy of the state.
The report is structured as follows. Following this introduction and methodology section, it examines the broader political context in which the current crackdown has unfolded. It then analyses the legal patterns and judicial mechanisms used against civil society actors and other critics. Subsequent sections assess the impact of these policies on civil society and independent media, including the closure of organisations, self-censorship, forced exile and the broader chilling effect on public participation. The report then reviews international responses and concludes with an assessment of the implications of these developments for human rights, democratic governance and the rule of law in Azerbaijan. Finally, recommendations are presented.
Footnotes
- Free Voices Collective, ‘Political Prisoners List’ https://freevoicescollective.org/political-prisoners-list/ accessed 15 June 2026. ↩
- Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Resolution 1900 (2012), The Definition of Political Prisoner (3 October 2012) https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=19150 accessed 9 June 2026. ↩
- Union for the Freedom for Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan, List of Political Prisoners: On 15 January 2026 (15 January 2026) https://www.ipd-az.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/15jan2026ENG.pdf accessed 15 June 2026. The report identifies twelve categories of political prisoners, including: journalists and bloggers; human rights defenders; members of opposition parties and civil society; national minority activists; anti-war activists; and persons arrested in connection with the Soyudlu case; persons arrested in connection with the Imishli case; political emigrants deported from Europe; believers; persons convicted in the Tartar case; persons convicted in the Ganja case; life-term prisoners. ↩