Azerbaijan criminalizes peace and knowledge
Azerbaijan human rights crisis worsened sharply during the first half of 2025. The government intensified sham trials, politically motivated prosecutions, and the near-total silencing of independent media and civil society. Although Azerbaijan remains a member of the Council of Europe and is bound by its human rights commitments, authorities continued to escalate repression against journalists, opposition activists, human rights defenders, and labor organizers. International scrutiny failed to halt the crackdown. Instead, Azerbaijani leaders used shifting geopolitical dynamics to entrench their authoritarian rule.
Courts issued harsh prison sentences to journalists, researchers, and activists on spurious charges. On June 20, 2025, the judiciary sentenced seven Abzas Media journalists to between 7.5 and 9 years in prison. Dozens more — including opposition politicians and trade unionists — remain behind bars as political prisoners. Prosecutors paralyzed independent media by launching criminal cases and issuing shutdown orders. Police banned journalists from traveling, arrested them for reporting, and subjected many to torture.
Meanwhile, prosecutors launched new criminal cases targeting NGOs, reviving a notorious 2014 crackdown. Authorities arrested human rights defenders using trumped-up financial charges designed to criminalize independent civil society. The regime handed down long prison sentences to opposition figures like Tofig Yagublu, who received 9 years and launched a 40-day hunger strike in protest. Security services beat detainees, isolated them for resisting abuse, denied them medical care, and coerced false confessions. Through repeated pretrial detention extensions and fabricated charges, the state seeks to eliminate dissent and instill fear.
Peace and minority rights advocacy becomes a crime
Following its 2020 military victory in Nagorno-Karabakh and ongoing peace talks, the regime grew intolerant of any advocacy for reconciliation. Since 2020, authorities targeted several activists for their pro-peace views and branded them as traitors. Police detained peace scholar Bahruz Samadov in August 2024, accusing him of high treason. His only “crime” was writing critically about wartime nationalism and advocating for peace. When the court refused to grant him house arrest, he began a hunger strike and attempted suicide. Samadov, a Prague-based PhD student with no access to state secrets, still faces up to life in prison. On June 20, the prosecutor requested a 16-year sentence. The next day, Samadov attempted suicide in protest.
Security forces also targeted Fazil Gasimov, an academic associated with opposition economist Gubad Ibadoglu. Agents abducted him from Turkey in 2023 and extradited him to Baku. In March 2025, a court sentenced him to 9 years in prison. Gasimov had protested mistreatment in detention by launching a hunger strike. In May, he told an appeals court that officials retaliated by placing him in solitary confinement after his May 10 protest.
Azerbaijan human rights crisis continued, authorities also sentenced Igbal Abilov, a young historian of Talysh ethnicity, to 18 years in prison on May 20, 2025. The government accused him of treason for his academic contacts abroad. The PACE rapporteur on political prisoners condemned the ruling and questioned its legitimacy.
Direct challenge to European values
These politically charged trials reveal a pattern; Azerbaijani authorities label intellectual dissent as espionage or sedition—a tactic reminiscent of Soviet-era repression. Council of Europe institutions have repeatedly condemned this strategy. Many of these cases fall under judgments from the European Court of Human Rights that Azerbaijan still refuses to execute, such as the 2014 ruling in the case of journalist Ilgar Mammadov.
By persecuting journalists, academics, and human rights defenders under the guise of national security, the Azerbaijani government attacks not only individuals—it assaults freedom, truth, peace, and democratic discourse. Criminalizing research and punishing reconciliation efforts sends a clear message: independent thought is the regime’s new definition of treason.
This repression is not just an internal matter. It challenges the very authority and credibility of the Council of Europe. Azerbaijan’s civic space continues to bleed. The international community must act—before the regime silences the last remaining voices for peace, dignity, and justice.