Civil society crackdown continues as Azerbaijan ramps up attacks on USAID

On Friday, the head of the Civil Rights Institute, Bashir Suleymanli, and the head of the Election Observation Alliance, Alpay Mammadzada, were remanded to three months and 28 days in pre-trial detention as part of a criminal case against local and international civil society organisations operating in Azerbaijan.

According to a close friend of Mammadzada, the latter’s phone was confiscated, as well as his wife’s phone and jewelry during a search of their house.

Two other civil society activists — the head of the Law and Development Public Association Hafiz Hasanov and media lawyer Khalid Aghaliyev — were also briefly detained, while Subhan Hasanli, the chair of the Social Rights Centre, who is currently living abroad in Germany, was placed on the wanted list.

On 14 March, lawyer Emin Abbasov privately shared on social media that the criminal case against local and international civil society organisations had been ‘reopened’.

The case originated in 2014, when prosecutors initiated a preliminary investigation for ‘tax evasion, illegal business activities involving large sums of money, carried out by an organised group’. According to Abbasov, the case had been closed in 2020.

That same day, independent media outlet Toplum TV clarified that those detained were Suleymanli, Hasanov, Mammadzada, and Aghaliyev.

On the evening of 14 March, both Aghaliyev and Hasanov were released.

According to pro-government media outlet APA, the Prosecutor’s Office sent a corresponding motion to the court about the arrest of Suleymanli and Mammadzada, which the Binagadi District Court granted.

Both activists were remanded to pre-trial detention on charges of forgery of official powers, legalisation of funds or other property obtained by criminal means committed in a significant amount, and abuse of official powers.

This is the second time Suleymanli has been under arrest, having been detained previously in 2013, also in a case related to civil society organisations.

In October 2013, the Prosecutor General’s Office began a criminal case against the Volunteers International Cooperation Public Union (VICPU), whose chair was Bashir Suleymanli, as well as the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDSC), whose chair was Anar Mammadli.

Pro-government media outlet Trend wrote at the time that the case had been initiated based on materials received from Azerbaijan’s Tax and Finance regarding illegal business activities by these organisations’ officials. Both Suleymanli and Mammadli were accused of obtaining large scale profit through abuse of office and tax evasion.

Following the conclusion of the case, Suleymanli was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

‘The illegal activity of USAID in Azerbaijan’

A person close to Suleymanli told OC Media on the condition of anonymity that the current case against civil society representatives is related to the investigation surrounding the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

‘I know that Bashir paid all his taxes and worked legally. He won this project from a different organisation, and USAID was the main donor. And Bashir got the money transferred to his account. It is easy for the government to follow this money. And the amount was not huge’.

The source said that USAID and the Azerbaijani government agreed with each other about the projects, on the basis that the main project winners were state agency representatives.

Similarly, Hasanli said that 20% of funding he received from US organisations were paid back in taxes to the government.

‘All social security and unemployment insurance payments were made. How then does this money become illegal? How is a criminal offense acquired? Three more payments were not mentioned in the indictment against me, and credited to my account. These were also payments from the US embassy’, Hasanli wrote.

He noted that government bodies, including the Justice Ministry, had also received similar grants, questioning why they did not face similar issues with the courts.

On 13 March, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke at the 12th Global Baku Forum about USAID activity in Azerbaijan. In his speech, Aliyev hinted that Azerbaijan was ready ‘to share information with American authorities about the illegal activity of USAID in Azerbaijan: how they bribed people, channeled financing illegally, violated Azerbaijani laws and regulations’.

‘Now it's time to be responsible for it. We are ready to provide all the information in our possession’, Aliyev said.