Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has submitted an amnesty act that would cover up to 20,000 people, in what pro-government media is saying would be the largest amnesty in Azerbaijan’s history.
The announcement was made public on Monday, with pro-government media outlet APA reporting that it would coincide with the ‘year of constitution and sovereignty’ and to commemorate the ‘restoration of sovereignty and the full establishment of the legal force of the constitution throughout the entire territory of the country’.
The amnesty would see the release of over 5,000 convicts, the reduction of more than 3,000 sentences, the release of 7,000 people from probation, the exemption of nearly 4,000 convicts from suspended sentences, and the lifting of criminal liability from 1,000 others.
The declaration itself did not directly specify which crimes the amnesty would cover, but said it would affect people who participated in combat operations during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 and the final assault on Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, as well as the close relatives of people who were killed or went missing in action, and people who received disabilities during fighting.
On Tuesday, APA published a comprehensive list of possible beneficiaries, including persons imprisoned for committing crimes that do not pose great public danger, those sentenced to terms not exceeding five years for crimes committed through negligence, and persons convicted over less serious crimes.
APA’s coverage of the amnesty announcement showered Aliyev with praise, saying Azerbaijan was able to restore its sovereignty as a result of his ‘resolute and far-sighted strategy [and] unshakable leadership’. It referred to him as the ‘victorious supreme commander-in-chief’ and as a ‘worthy successor’ to his father, former President Heydar Aliyev.
While Ilham Aliyev regularly announces amnesties, mostly to mark public holidays in Azerbaijan, the decrees very rarely cover people labelled as political prisoners by local activists or international rights groups. Journalists, politicians, or activists convicted by Azerbaijan have occasionally received presidential pardons that would commute their sentences or secure their release.
The amnesty was announced against the backdrop of an ongoing crackdown on the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, whose chair, Ali Karimli, was detained in November alongside dozens of others.
Around 30 journalists from Meydan TV, Abzas Media, Toplum TV, have also been detained by the authorities over the past few years as part of a wider crackdown on independent media in the country.
Abzas Media, the first media outlet to be targeted by the crackdown in November 2023, had six of its staff members, in addition to RFE/RL’s Farid Mehralizada, handed lengthy sentences on charges of smuggling in June.
The Baku Court of Grave Crimes held a preparatory hearing against Meydan TV on 12 December.
Yousef Bardouka
