Caspian Wire | Five journalists and activists punished for asking for water | August 2026

August brought a new form of retaliation against the nine Toplum TV journalists sentenced in July, five of them were placed in punishment cells for asking for drinking water. APFP chair Ali Karimli collapsed from dehydration in court after his cell’s water and electricity were cut, and by month’s end a newspaper editor was reporting that authorities were preparing a provocation against his wife. A new law let websites be blocked without a court order, exiled media outlets found their social accounts under a coordinated takedown campaign, and a side-by-side reading of the EU’s own human rights reporting found Azerbaijan described in markedly softer terms than Belarus for comparable conduct.

01

Ali Karimli’s Health Crisis, and a Threat to His Wife

Collapse in Court as Water and Power Are Cut

On 6 August, during a hearing on his appeal for house arrest, Ali Karimli, chair of the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (APFP), lost consciousness from severe dehydration. His family said drinking water and electricity to his cell were cut from 5 August, which also disabled the ventilation. Karimli has been held since 29 November 2025 on charges of attempting to seize power by force and change the constitutional order.

Bahruz Hasanli Released, Then Re-Arrested

Bahruz Hasanli, who has lived in Ukraine since 2016, was detained in Kharkiv on 27 July at Azerbaijan’s request, released by a Ukrainian court on 30 July, then re-arrested on 7 August pending extradition proceedings. His detention timed, APFP members note, around Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov’s 6 August visit to Kyiv. Ukrainian rights groups say Azerbaijan accuses Hasanli of funnelling $850,000 to Karimli for a “coup,” a claim they call baseless.

02

Toplum TV Prisoners Punished for Asking for Water

Five Prisoners Sent to Punishment Cells

Weeks after the harshest media sentences in Azerbaijan’s recent history, Toplum TV’s imprisoned staff faced a new round of retaliation. On 19 August, Ruslan Izzatli and Ali Zeynalov were placed in punishment cells (sweatbox) at the Umbaki Penitentiary Complex for protesting the lack of drinking water in the summer heat, for 7 and 6 days respectively. When three co-defendants, Akif Qurbanov, Ramil Babayev and Farid Ismayilov, objected on their behalf on 21 August, they too were sent to punishment cells, 5 days each, timed to end alongside Izzatli and Zeynalov.

Alasgar Mammadli’s Health

Alasgar Mammadli, sentenced to 14 years in the same case, suffered a heart episode overnight on 8–9 August in Baku pretrial detention, his pulse over 120 bpm, his wife Gunay Mammadli said. According to her, no medical staff were available over the weekend. He described to his brother a sudden chest pressure and dizziness the next day that made him fall to his knees. Justice Ministry doctors examined him on 10–11 August, but his brother says one told the family a referral for outside cardiac testing “could cost me my job.”

03

Meydan TV Case: Health and Safety Concerns

No ENT Specialist in the Prison System

Human Rights Watch and the International Press Institute said on 25 August that Aytaj Tapdig (Ahmadova), held since December 2024, has a deviated septum and chronic breathing difficulty, and has gone through 80 boxes of nasal spray over 20 months without receiving the surgery she needs. Requests for an MRI and CT scan have been denied, and a June letter from her lawyer to the Central Medical Directorate went unanswered. The European Federation of Journalists had already called for her release on 11 August.

A Cellmate Placed Without Screening

Journalist Ulviyya Ali‘s mother says that around 23 August, a woman who says she killed her husband was placed in her daughter’s cell without the psychological screening detention rules require. Ulviyya Ali connects the move to an interview she conducted with imprisoned researcher Igbal Abilov and a complaint she filed about non-functioning ventilation, and says she holds the authorities responsible for anything that happens to her as a result.

04

Medical Neglect Across the Penitentiary System

Abzas Media: Denied Medication, an MRI Since January

The International Press Institute raised alarm on 18 August over Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli and journalist Nargiz Absalamova, both showing health decline. Hasanli’s family separately alleges that the clinic chief at his facility has been withholding his prescribed medication and demanding payment for it directly, providing three penicillin tablets where twenty were needed, then telling him “pay, and you’ll get it.” Absalamova has been waiting for an MRI since January.

Bahruz Samadov’s Eyesight

Researcher and peace activist Bahruz Samadov, serving 15 years on a treason conviction he denies, says his eyesight has worsened further since being moved to a small, dark, TV-less cell at Umbaki. Friends say an ophthalmologist who examined him in early August simply gave him eye drops and told him plainly that he “should not be kept in conditions like this.”

Nurlan Libre’s smuggled letter also documents routinely undercooked meat, spoiled ingredients served near their expiry date, and a rule he says was invoked for the first time against him, that as a “political prisoner,” he could no longer receive groceries from anyone but immediate family.

05

Punitive Transfers, Disappearances, and Other Cases

Harassment against opposition activists

Activist Nijat Ibrahim’s detention regime was tightened to six months in a closed-type facility in early August, at his warden’s request. His wife, Parvin Ibrahimli, says she then went 17 days without contact before learning he had injured his own ear and throat after a guard, aware of his heart condition, punched him in the chest for refusing to sign a statement. “They’re playing with his life,” she said. Separately, APFP activist Elnur Hasanov was allegedly beaten at Penitentiary Facility No. 6 following his own closed-regime transfer. APFP says he is now in the Justice Ministry’s treatment facility in serious condition.

Weeks of Silence

The family of Vugar Aliyev, a Muslim Unity Movement member serving a narcotics sentence he disputes, says they have had no contact with him for 20 days since he was moved out of Umbaki’s closed prison without explanation. He had been sent to the facility last year for joining a hunger strike led by jailed politician Tofig Yagublu. Separately, the family of religious-belief activist Samid Huseynov reported him missing for the second time this year, most recently for two days in early August. He had previously served 15 days’ administrative detention after a near-identical disappearance in June.

Appeal Denied Despite an ECtHR Finding

The Baku Court of Appeal upheld human rights defender Rufat Safarov‘s 8-year sentence on 24 August, despite a February 2026 ECtHR ruling that evidence used against him in an earlier 2016 case had not been properly tested. Safarov, who received the US State Department’s Human Rights Defender Award in 2019, denies the extortion charge underlying his 2024 arrest.

The NGO Case Continues

Prosecutors sought a 9-year suspended sentence for economist Galib Bayramov, brother of jailed economist Gubad Ibadoglu, in the long-running “NGO case.” Separately, researcher Igbal Abilov‘s defamation suit against four pro-government outlets was rejected on 11 August after a judge closed the courtroom citing “state secrets,” a characterization his lawyer disputed since the material at issue had already been widely published.

Releases

A few names moved the other way this month. APFP Salyan branch head Alizamin Salayev was released on 7 August under an amnesty covering the remaining six months of his sentence. Ishchi Masasi trade union members Elvin Mustafayev (4 August) and Aykhan Israfilov (11 August) completed three-year sentences and were freed, though the union’s chair and another member remain jailed.

Gasimli’s husband, political scientist Azer Gasimli, is serving 12 years, she herself was named a criminal defamation defendant in July and barred from leaving the country.

06

Shrinking Digital Space

Sites Can Now Be Blocked Without a Court Order

President Aliyev signed amendments on 5 August expanding the grounds on which websites can be blocked without judicial review, adding insult, defamation, privacy violations and “false information” to a narrower 2017 standard. The same package bars anyone under 16 from registering on “age-restricted” social media platforms, requires 16-to-18-year-olds to get a parent’s consent, and gives foreign platforms six months to register a legal presence inside Azerbaijan or face an escalating sequence of penalties — a warning, then fines rising to 300,000 manat, then a ban on placing ads with any Azerbaijani taxpayer, then a court order to cut the platform’s traffic inside the country by 20 percent, then 50 percent, then 90 percent.

A New Media Council, With Power Over Social Content

On 14 July, Aliyev signed amendments to the Law on Media that go well beyond the wording changes they resemble on paper. Much of the text simply swaps “audiovisual” for “media and broadcasting” throughout the statute, folding print and online outlets into a jurisdiction that previously covered only broadcast media. But the amendments also merge Azerbaijan’s two media regulators, the Audiovisual Council (ACRA) and the Media Development Agency (MEDIA), into a single Media Council, and hand it seventeen new powers, including explicit authority to analyze “digital content” across media and social media platforms and take unspecified measures in response, alongside continued control of the Media Registry that outlets and journalists must join to operate legally. Days before the signing, on 7 July, the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform had flagged the merger while it was still before parliament, warning in a joint alert filed by CPJ, EFJ/IFJ, RSF, IPI and JFJ that concentrating licensing, registration and content-monitoring powers in one executive-appointed body compounds problems the European Court of Human Rights already found in Azerbaijan’s broadcast regulator, whose members are appointed by the president without public consultation. The Venice Commission had reached a similar conclusion about ACRA back in 2022, reviewing the Law on Media as it was being proposed and then signed into force, writing that the Council “cannot be considered to be an independent regulatory body” because it lacks financial independence and its members are appointed and dismissed by a body designated by the president — the same structure the merger now carries over to the combined body.

A Coordinated Takedown Campaign

On 28 August, eight exiled outlets — Abzas Media, Meydan TV, Toplum TV, Azadlıq Qəzeti, HamamTimes, Azərbaycan Saatı, Qəzetçi and Mikroskop Media — issued a joint statement saying their Instagram and Facebook accounts have been targeted by a wave of fraudulent copyright complaints, several traced to the same email addresses reused across unrelated accounts. Meta has already deactivated some pages in response. The outlets are calling on Meta to investigate the pattern as coordinated abuse rather than isolated technical complaints, and to restore the accounts taken down in error.

07

EU Report on Azerbaijan

Two Reports, Two Vocabularies

A close reading published by the Baku Research Institute on 17 August, by historian Altay Goyushov, compares the EU’s 2025 annual human rights report sections on Belarus and Azerbaijan and finds a consistent gap in register for comparable conduct. Belarus’s section states plainly that “as of end-December 2025, there were still more than 1,100 arbitrarily detained political prisoners in Belarus.” Azerbaijan’s section never uses the phrase “political prisoner” at all, referring instead to people “detained in politically sensitive cases”, with no corresponding count.

What the Report Leaves Out

The same review notes omissions specific to Azerbaijan’s section. There is no mention of the in-custody death of APFP youth member Elbay Karimli, no reference to in-absentia sentencing or physical attacks on government critics living in Europe, and no discussion of Azerbaijan’s continued closure of its land border crossings.

The EU’s Own Numbers

The EU’s Annual Report itself, released 13 August, describes Azerbaijan’s 2025 human rights and democracy situation as marked by “serious problems” and “restrictive” freedoms, and notes that the European Court of Human Rights issued 39 rulings against Azerbaijan in 2025, finding violations in 38 of them.