Independent journalist charged in wider case against civil society organisations in Azerbaijan

Yesterday, independent journalist Anar Abdulla was summoned to the Investigative Department of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office for questioning, after which he was charged in the wider criminal case against human rights activist Anar Mammadli. Following this, Abdulla was placed into police custody.

His lawyer, Gunay Ismayilova, told OC Media that Abdulla was charged on seven counts including illegal entrepreneurship, false entrepreneurship,  and smuggling.

Abdulla separately told OC Media that the charges brought against him were similar to those against Mammadli, adding that he rejects the validity of the charges.

Mammadli, the chair of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, was arrested in April 2024 and charged with smuggling committed by a group of persons by prior agreement.

Mammadli has denied all charges, instead claiming that he is being punished for his activities related to election monitoring and human rights protection.

Mammadli’s arrest triggered a crackdown on civil society in Azerbaijan.

In June 2024, Mehriban Rahimli, a representative from the German Marshall Foundation, posted on social media that she was interrogated five times before being banned from leaving the country.

According to OC Media’s anonymous source, Rahimli was again interrogated earlier in April 2025 before being released under house arrest.

In  March 2025, the head of the local Civil Rights Institute, Bashir Suleymanli, and the head of the Election Observation Alliance, Mammad Alpay, 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.

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

The crackdown on civil society organisations in Azerbaijan intensified after the administration of US President Donald Trump targeted the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly called USAID a corrupt organisation, and local civil society organisations that have received funding from USAID have been subject to police investigations.

On Wednesday, Aliyev stated that ‘the steps taken by President Trump are very promising, but this is not the end’ at the international forum ‘Facing a new world order’, held at ADA University.

‘USAID is one of the giants, it is a completely corrupt organisation’, Aliyev continued.Aliyev stated that the activities of radio stations RFE/RL and Voice of America have been suspended, but that this was not enough, drawing attention to the additional need to stop the activities of such institutions as Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and Amnesty International, which he claimed serve to incite ‘political hatred’.