Hearing at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, June 26, 2025
Hearing on the situation of journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan organized by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The full speech I delivered on June 26, 2025.
Good morning, and thank you for having me here.
Two years ago, I was in this very building with Ulvi Hasanli, director of Abzas Media. We came here to brief you on developments in Azerbaijan. I began that speech with a simple question: “Why should you care? Why should anyone care?”
Today, I return to ask the same question. But this time, I do so alone. Ulvi Hasanli—my co-panelist then—is in prison now. Nine years. That’s the sentence handed to him just last week. He joins a growing list of journalists and activists in Azerbaijan who dared to tell the truth and paid for it with their freedom.
Sevinc Vagifgizi, Mahammad Kekalov, Nargiz Absalamova, Elnara Gasimova, Hafiz Babali—Ulvi’s team. All behind bars. Their crime? Investigating corruption, not praising the concrete, empty statements, and hollow government policies. Choosing truth over free apartments, like many other government-affiliated journalists have done in the past. Reporting on matters and issues that may land them in prison, fearlessly. Because that is the kind of journalism one does even when in the face of potential reprisals.
Journalists from Meydan TV—Ramin Deko (Jabrayilzade), Aynur Ganbarova (Elgunash), Aysel Umudova, Aytaj Ahmadova (Tapdig), Khayala Aghayeva, and Natig Javadli —are also silenced because they showed up when no one else would, when it mattered. Those who collaborated with them are also now behind bars, facing the same bogus charges. Among them are Nurlan Gahramanli, Fatima Movlamli, Shamshad Aghayev, and Ulviyya Ali.
All of these names that I just mentioned are in pretrial detention, and that period was extended by another three months, two days ago on June 24.
The same applies to journalists from Toplum TV and its affiliated colleagues, Akif Gurbanli, Ruslan Izzatli, who are among at least ten people currently in pretrial detention as part of the Toplum TV case, a so-called criminal investigation on bogus charges. There are also channel 13 and channel 11 editors - Aziz Orucov and Teymur Kerimov, who have also been sent behind bars. Kerimov was sentenced to 8 years, while Orucov was sentenced to two years.
In total, some 25 journalists. When combined with all the civic activists and rights defenders, some 50 people have been behind bars since November 2023.
So why should you care? Because civil society in Azerbaijan is decimated. Dissolved into a soup of state-funded puppets, known by the charming acronym GONGOs. An empty pantomime of civic engagement.
Caring matters because the people who did the work—Anar Mammadli, Bashir Suleymanli, Rufat Safarov, Imran Aliyev, and many others —are all now behind bars.
Because, without an independent civil society and journalists, there is no accountability. And no, “accountability” is not some decorative word you slap onto reports—it's the foundation of every document this institution is built on.
Caring matters because we have allowed a smokescreen of reforms—EU-funded National Action Plans, training programs, development budgets—to mask what has become a country run not by law, but by unchecked power, fear, and impunity.
In 2017, the Azerbaijani Penitentiary Service received more than one million euros from the EU and the Council of Europe. Since 2014, 23 million euros have been handed over for “judicial reform,” “capacity building,” and—my personal favorite—“improving prison conditions.”
Money well spent, I ask you?
Let’s take a look.
Here's an excerpt from the interrogation of independent journalist Ulviyya Guliyeva:
“The policeman standing over my head started punching me each time I said ‘I don’t know.’ Five times on the back of the head, twice in the middle, twice on the temple. Once they saw I was not going to give up the passwords, they started pulling my hair in different directions, pulling it out. Then they brought what appeared to be an electric shock device. One said, ‘I’ll break your ladyship.’ My heart was in my mouth at these words. We have long seen and heard what the Azerbaijani police are ‘capable of.’ The Azerbaijani police abuse people, beat them, and commit illegal acts. Little did I know, the Azerbaijani police can abuse and rape a woman,”
This is not medieval history. This is now.
Here is another account of torture from Ulvi Hasanli’s prison diary:
“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 has documented 58 cases in six months since being placed in pretrial detention. And that’s just what one journalist could count. Imagine what’s happening behind the closed doors of pre-trial detention centers, in the silence where even reporting from prison will no longer be possible.
There is also this testimony and recollection of Anna Taghiyeva, a former transgender inmate who spoke to Meydan TV in 2024. In the interview, Taghiyeva recalled how she was forced to strip alongside other inmates and used as a weapon of psychological coercion. Prison management called this a strategy.
This month, Ali Zeynal, an employee of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI) currently on trial as part of the larger Toplum TV case, has penned a letter to the Minister of Justice. In his letter, Zeynal detailed violations of laws and inadequate sanitary conditions at the pretrial detention facility where he and many other journalists, rights defenders, and political activists have been held since November 2023. Zeynal described dire cell conditions, contrasting them with a "renovated and cleaned" cell (number 12) shown to a Ministry of Justice commission a month prior. In his cell (number 19), Zeynal reported cockroaches, rats, and personal belongings contaminated with sewage. He also recounted mistreatment by Penitentiary Service employees, including being placed in solitary confinement after complaining about ventilation. Shortly after his letter was publicized, Zeynal was subjected to psychological pressure and threatened with transfer to a high-security prison. His right to phone calls with family members has also been restricted.
There is also the story of labor rights activist Elvin Mustafayev, who was sentenced to three years in January 2025. He has been placed in solitary confinement since May 6 in retaliation for a hunger strike he undertook in support of jailed politician Tofig Yagublu. During this period, he was also transferred between prisons without informing his lawyer or his family. On June 24, it was reported that the labor rights activist was beaten by the head of penitentiary number 6 and two other employees of the penitentiary. As a result, the activist reportedly lost his conscience and had his ear fractured.
You may also want to know how a group of police officers beat up a group of young men, all minors who were sitting at a park in Baku until police officers showed up, took them against their will, beat them, swore at them, and demanded bribes from their families in an exchange for their release.
Or how young the police beat civic activist Ahmad Mammadli during his arrest - the damage left is colossal, as Mammadli may lose his eyesight.
Yet, in February of this year—while these abuses were taking place—officials from the Azerbaijani government sat with representatives of the Council of Europe to celebrate “achievements,” plan “next steps,” and reaffirm their “alignment with European values.”
Do you see the contradiction?
The government of Azerbaijan has mastered repression with a PowerPoint smile. The land borders have been closed for five years, ostensibly due to COVID. Yet flights continue, and elite travel remains untouched. This is not public health policy. It’s a pressure cooker.
Meanwhile, the youngest critical voices—people like Igbal Abilov and Bahruz Samadov—have received lengthy jail terms for expressing their critical thoughts. Activists are being punished not for actual wrongdoing, but for international recognition of their work.
The irony is thick: In a state that punishes fame, global praise is a liability.
Now, let’s talk about the charges. Journalists and activists are being accused of “abuse of authority,” “smuggling,” and “money laundering.” Let me ask: who in Azerbaijan has the authority to abuse?
The government and ruling family have been named in international investigations for laundering billions, from the laundromat exposés to the Panama and Pandora Papers. These are not allegations. These are documented financial crimes—on a scale that makes the average fraudster look like they were stealing pocket change.
Yet it is the critics who are jailed for “financial misconduct”? It’s Kafka in a tracksuit.
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable: this didn’t happen in a vacuum. This repression is emboldened by external validation—governments, journalists, academics, and institutions who pretend they don’t see the rot. Or worse, those who see it and stay silent because there's gas, trade, and diplomatic optics at stake.
When you award the regime prestige while ignoring the grave human rights violations and blood on its hands, you're not being neutral. You're complicit.
So, here’s what I ask from this committee, from PACE, and every member state:
Establish a dedicated legal aid fund for families of political prisoners—managed outside Azerbaijani state structures—to cover legal representation, court costs, and international advocacy.
Prioritize direct funding and operational support to exiled media outlets and journalists. These are the last free voices documenting the truth—and they are being slowly starved out.
Impose conditionality on all funding and partnership frameworks. No more blank checks for National Action Plans that whitewash torture and repression. Require independent audits and verifiable benchmarks for every euro spent.
Launch a special monitoring mechanism on Azerbaijan’s prison system, building on CPT’s findings, but with teeth—public reporting, sanctions triggers, and mandated responses.
Combat reputation laundering by investigating and naming European and international actors who aid and abet the Azerbaijani government’s propaganda machine, whether through paid media, fake civil society platforms, or co-opted academic work.
There may soon be no one left in Azerbaijan to write these stories, to document these abuses, to bear witness.
You care because silence makes you an accessory. You care because your signatures are on the very documents used to fund this regime. You care because the next Ulvi, Sevinc, Aysel, Aytac, Ramin, Bahruz, and countless others are already being watched, already being followed, already being threatened.
Care because the values of this institution demand it.
And because the question is no longer, “Why should you care?”
It’s: What will you do, now that you know?
Thank you.