Azerbaijani colonel’s sex tapes latest in culture of sexual intimidation

Videos filmed by a senior Azerbaijani official in which he has sex with female colleagues on ministry property have circulated online. 

The videos, made public on Monday, show Colonel Zaur Mirzayev, assistant to the head of the State Fire Protection Service at the Ministry of Emergency Situations, having sex with at least 13 women, including high-level officials.

The release of secretly filmed intimate recordings to discredit people, especially women, or to blackmail them, has become frequent in recent years in Azerbaijan.

According to the timestamp on the videos, at least some of the footage was recorded in 2014.

While social media users initially claimed that the videos were taken by a third party, it was later confirmed that the intimate videos were filmed by Mirzayev. One of the videos shows Mirzayev setting up the camera before a woman enters the room, and placing it out of her sight. 

On Wednesday, the General Prosecutor’s Office announced they had opened an investigation.

They also asked ‘social network users and media representatives to observe ethical and legislative norms related to sensitive topics of this kind’. 

The Ministry of Emergencies has not yet issued a statement regarding the videos.

Putting women’s lives at risk

Speaking to OC Media, feminist activist Narmin Shahmarzade said that ‘if those involved in this case are not held criminally accountable by law enforcement agencies, such cases will increase and be repeated’. 

‘In general, having sex is taboo in Azerbaijan, and the distribution of such videos on social networks overwhelmingly harms women and puts their lives in danger. It is clear from the videos that the mobile phone’s camera was deliberately placed and adjusted by the man.’

‘Azerbaijan’s law enforcement agencies should take serious and immediate measures to enforce privacy laws. There are laws on the inviolability of private life in the legislation of Azerbaijan, but how effective they are is questionable.’

[Read by Narmin Shahmarzade on OC Media: Opinion | In Azerbaijan sex is a weapon]

This is not the first time that such videos have been made public in Azerbaijan.

Publication of sex tapes has been used to humiliate and intimidate dissidents, opposition politicians, journalists, social, religious, and political activists, and their family members. More recently, members of the government have fallen victim to the practice.

In August of last year, Ali Hasanov, a former assistant to the president, posted on Twitter that he had been blackmailed with a photograph taken of him without his knowledge. 

A month later, videos and photos of Ramiz Goyushov, chair of a local chapter of the New Azerbaijan Party, were publicised on social networks. 

Shahmarzade said that unless the authorities acted, similar cases would likely follow.

‘If the perpetrators of this kind of slander, threats, and blackmail and those who circulate and spread these acts are not brought to criminal responsibility, such cases will increase’, she said.