A court has sentenced the head of the Centre for Research Against Torture, Fikrat Jafarli, to four months in prison on charges of slander — reportedly for criticising the Azerbaijani Bar Association.
The independent news website Meydan TV reported that Jafarli was sentenced on Tuesday, and that lawyer Elvin Aliyev, who is a member of the Azerbaijani Bar Association’s Disciplinary Commission, was the plaintiff in the case.
The outlet reported that Jafarli was likely detained for his organisation’s publication of an appeal by Habela Allahverdiyeva, according to which Aliyev demanded a payment of ₼10,500 ($6,200) from her detained husband, Elvin Allahverdiyev, whose freedom Aliyev claimed he could secure.
According to the appeal, Aliyev promised the family that Allahverdiyev would return home in a year and a half. However, he was sentenced to three years on drug charges in 2023.
‘In [Allahberdiyev’s wife’s] appeal, she not only made this issue public, but also asked to report it to the relevant government agencies. In addition to sending the appeal to the relevant government agencies, the centre also shared part of this appeal by adding it to a status posted by another person on the social platform Facebook in April 2025’, read the post published by Centre for Research Against Torture.
Meydan TV cited Jafarli as saying that the appeal was not his personal position, and was based on the social media post initially shared by journalist Arzu Abdulla.
On Tuesday, Abdulla posted on Facebook decrying Jafarli’s sentencing. She said that although Jafarli cited her as the originator of the appeal, Aliyev insisted that the profile the centre had linked to — her profile — ‘is fake and that such a person does not exist’.
‘I appealed to the court, but the court did not grant the petitions for my interrogation and the interrogation of Allahverdiyev in court on this issue’, wrote Abdulla.
‘The legal court system in Azerbaijan is destroyed in this way’, she continued, adding that ‘Fikrat Jafarli, who always defends the rights of political prisoners and people whose rights are trampled on, is a political prisoner!’
Aytan Farhadova
