Torture, ill-treatment, and due process violations in Azerbaijani prisons

Torture and abuse of detained journalists and rights defenders

Torture and ill-treatment of those in custody remain systemic in Azerbaijan. Numerous cases documented between January to June 2025 highlight this. In Baku’s Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 (Kurdakhani), where many political detainees are held, conditions are dire. Not just political prisoners but other inmates too. Jailed journalist Elnara Gasimova (of Abzas Media) managed to send a letter in January 2025, documenting how women inmates are physically and psychologically mistreated, denied legal rights, and kept in inhumane conditions. “Just as citizens’ rights are violated in the country, they are also violated in the detention center,” wrote Gasimova.

Indeed, detainees are often beaten for protesting or as a method of coercion. During a January 14 court hearing, prison guards attacked union activist Mohyaddin Orucov and his family in the courtroom, dragging them across the floor and beating them before expelling them from the hall– a shocking scene that underscores impunity. In another instance, Nargiz Absalamova, an Abzas Media journalist, was bloodied by a prison guard who clawed her arm with nails in a pre-trial detention facility. Absalamova reported this guard had repeatedly harassed female inmates with violence, suggesting a pattern of abuse by certain officers.

Political prisoners are frequently placed in solitary confinement as punishment for speaking out. In April, union leader Afiyaddin Mammadov abruptly went incommunicado. For days, his family could not contact Mammadov, only to learn later that the activist was placed in solitary confinement as a reprisal for his support for Tofig Yagublu‘s hunger strike. Similarly, war-veteran-turn-civic-activist Haci Valiyev (who led a now-defunct war veterans’ union) was placed in solitary confinement on May 8, 2025, following an argument in which he complained of severe eye pain to a prison doctor. Valiyev’s eye wound was festering, but instead of hospitalizing him, authorities punished him for demanding medical care. He remains in a pre-trial detention facility, and his condition is concerning. Authorities also cut off his pension and state benefits following his arrest, putting additional pressure on him.

Since 2014, the European Union has transferred over €23 million to Azerbaijan for judicial reform, capacity building, and prison improvements. Yet evidence from inside the system tells a darker story.

In a chilling excerpt from her interrogation, independent journalist Ulviyya Guliyeva recounted:

“The policeman standing over my head started punching me each time I said, ‘I don’t know.’ Five times in the back of the head, twice in the middle, twice in the temple. When I refused to give up my passwords, they began pulling my hair out in chunks. Then they brought what looked like an electric shock device. One officer said, ‘I’ll break your ladyship.’ My heart was in my mouth at those words. I already knew the Azerbaijani police beat people, tortured them. But I didn’t know they would rape a woman.”

This troubling testimony is far from isolated. The Ministry of Internal Affairs Organized Crime Unit is notoriously involved in torturing political arrestees. The CPT’s public statement in 2024 noted “severe and systemic” torture, especially in police custody, and that Azerbaijan flatly refuses to improve or even acknowledge these abuses. The Terter case (a 2017 army torture scandal) remains emblematic of the state’s lack of accountability on torture and ill-treatment – dozens of soldiers were tortured, some to death, on false treason suspicions. In 2022–2023, some low-level officers were convicted for Terter torture, but human rights groups say the real masterminds got away.

Ulvi Hasanli, director of Abzas Media, kept a prison diary on state-sanctioned violence during his pre-trial detention:

“Slap, kick, punch, truncheon blow, swearing. Inmates handcuffed to cell bars, to beds, suspended in stress positions for hours. 9 to 10 a.m.—that’s the torture hour. Management calls it discipline.”

Hasanli recorded 58 cases of abuse in six months—just within his purview. This documentation shows the normalized cruelty embedded in the prison system, especially at Kurdakhani Detention Center.

Abzas Media as well as Meydan TV, reported on similar torture cases. For this both outlets’ journalists are currently behind bars.

For current detainees, lack of medical care is a recurring form of inhumane treatment. Aside from the examples above, we note journalist Avaz Zeynalli who was sentenced to 9 years in 2022 on dubious extortion charges. In April 2025, Zeynalli was diagnosed with cancer while in prison. Only after a petition and court ruling the same month, was Zeynalli finally released for treatment. Many others with critical illnesses are not as fortunate and remain incarcerated with insufficient care. Among them, the opposition leader Azer Gasimli, who suffers from a series of health issues but was denied release to house arrest in May 2025, despite a court order noting inconsistencies in charges leveled against the politician. Similarly, Ahmad Mammadli, a young civic activist, may lose his eyesight as a result of blows to the head during his detention in May 2025.

Lack of fair trial and due process

Political cases in Azerbaijan are marked by flagrant due process violations. Trials are often closed to public observers; in the Abzas trial, authorities limited courtroom access, prompting defense motions when even family members were barred. Motions by defense – for instance, to examine exculpatory evidence or summon key witnesses (like requesting economist Gubad Ibadoglu to testify in Fazil Gasimov’s appeal) – are routinely rejected. The handful of lawyers who courageously take on the politically sensitive cases face intimidation; some have been disbarred in past years (Yalchin Imanov in 2017, after he reported torture of a client). Pretrial detentions are nearly automatically extended every 2–3 months with perfunctory court decisions.

For instance, all Meydan TV journalists saw their detentions extended by 3 months in mid-March 2025 and later in June 2025 without individual justification. Courts also refuse to investigate credible torture claims. When academic Fazil Gasimov testified during his own trial, he was assaulted and denied access to his case file, judges replied it was “outside their jurisdiction” since it happened outside the courtroom – effectively shrugging off a serious rights violation. Gasimov also received death threat from a co-defendant (with the intent to likely intimidate him) less he dropped his lawyer. Once again, the court took no action besides issuing a formal warning.

These are just a handful of examples, illustrating n environment where defendants have no confidence in redress, leaving them little to no options other than resorting to such drastic measures as hunger strikes. Tofig Yagublu’s hunger strike, Polad Aslanov’s hunger strike (a jailed journalist who started one on April 5 in protest of being denied family visits), and Ulvi Hasanli most recently as well as many others reflect the scale of desperation. There are also travel bans and arbitrary police supervision handed to those released . For example, Famil Khalilov, a disabled activist arrested in May 2024, was given a 3-year suspended sentence in Feb 2025 with 2 years of probation – essentially a warning that any activism will land him back in jail.

Finally, impunity for officials who commit abuses is nearly total. Not a single high-ranking official has been held accountable for torture or illegal arrests in recent years. The police officers who violently dispersed protests or mistreated detainees have not faced charges – on the contrary, they are often rewarded or promoted. Much of this gets little coverage, and only when it reaches wider audience and leads to public outcry measures are taken. This climate of impunity perpetuates the cycle of abuse. It’s notable that in June 2019, some CoE parliamentarians already “sounded the alarm” that the CoE’s approach isn’t stopping these abuses. Fast forward to 2025, things have only worsened: the rule of law in Azerbaijan is effectively suspended for government opponents, replaced by rule by law – using the legal system as a weapon against dissent.

The systemic torture, denial of due process, and impunity outlined above illustrates a carceral regime designed not to reform, but to punish and silence dissent. Azerbaijan’s justice system remains a tool of repression—where law is weaponized, and accountability is absent.