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Become a memberRecently, USAID employees, queer citizens, and the heads of varying civil society organisations have been summoned by Azerbaijan’s General Prosecutor’s Office for interrogation. These requests are the latest in Azerbaijan’s crackdown and ongoing repression against civil society.
On Wednesday, Bashir Suleymanli, head of the Institute of Civil Rights, lost his appeal in court regarding the terms of his pre-trial detention. Suleymanli, who is facing charges of fraud, legalisation of funds or other property obtained by criminal means, committed on a large scale, and abuse of power, was remanded to three months and 28 days of pre-trial detention on 14 March.
A close friend of his who spoke on the condition of anonymity told OC Media that Suleymanli had denied all the accusations during the court process, claiming that he was arrested for political reasons.
‘What he did, he did to develop his NGO’s reputation in Azerbaijan, and he deliberately tried to stay away from any illegal activity’, Suleymanli’s friend said.
Over the past year, the persecution of civil society representatives in Azerbaijan has intensified. At the same time, less and less people are willing to speak openly about the ongoing crackdown, allowing the Azerbaijani authorities to keep the scale of the repression under wraps.
A second source, who likewise wished to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told OC Media that queer activists have also been summoned to the General Prosecutor's Office, where they were interrogated about foreign grants.
‘Representatives of the Azerbaijani office of USAID [the US Agency for International Development]. were also interrogated, but they all chose to remain silent. Because in this way they think they can save themselves from the repressive machine’, the source told OC Media.
In June 2024, Mehriban Rahimli, a representative from the German Marshall Foundation, posted on social media that she was interrogated five times and she was banned from leaving the country.
According to OC Media’s anonymous source, Rahimli was again interrogated earlier this month before being released under house arrest.
Similarly, Hafiz Hasanov, the chair of the Development Public Association, was detained and was questioned for several hours before being released to police control.
The source told OC Media that the interrogated civil society members’ mobile phones were also confiscated by the police.
Aytan Farhadova
The first signal that a new crackdown on civil society was looming came from the coverage provided by pro-government media.
For example, on 18 February, the pro-government media outlet Report published an article targeting a number of civil society organisations, including the Election Monitoring and Democratic Study Centre, the Media Law Institute, and the Institute of the Democratic Initiative, among others. The article also targeted human rights activist Anar Mammadli, accusing him of illegally implementing grant projects he received from the German Marshall Fund, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Embassy, and USAID.
The latest such article was published by Qafqazinfo, another pro-government media outlet, following the detentions of Suleymanli and Mammad Alpay. Alpay was also remanded to three months and 28 days pre-trial detention as part of the same case.
This article added new names, claiming that it ‘has been proven’ that civil society organisations in Azerbaijan were ‘associated with international organisations acting against state interests’.
‘The grant funds were obtained illegally and disguised as a service contract without registration with the relevant executive authority of Azerbaijan’, the article additionally claimed.
Both of the articles blamed US-based organisations — most notably USAID and NED — as well as media investigation outlets like the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) for giving grants ‘for the dirty plans that they want to implement in our country’.
Sanubar Heydarova, an Azerbaijani social worker who is now living abroad in exile, told OC Media about her experience winning a USAID grant for $24,000 in order to train social workers for a year.
‘I didn’t do any bad things, I didn’t spend this money for terrorism, which they now mention. They said that we violated the image of Azerbaijan. They didn’t know that it was their own work — Azerbaijan is in the last ranking in every report everywhere’, Heydarova said.
She claimed that signed a contract with USAID, opened a bank account, and paid taxes, her social pension, and even medical insurance.
‘My accounts were open to the government and no one said that this is illegal. Why at that time it was legal, but now [it] is illegal?’ she asked rhetorically.
Aytan Farhadova
Russia also said that Armenia’s ‘frozen’ membership in the CSTO ‘does not contribute to strengthening Armenia’s security’.
The ECHR previously banned the extradition of Sadigov to Azerbaijan, after which he ended his 161-day hunger strike.
The next match between the Armenian and Georgian national football teams will be held in Tbilisi on Sunday.
The new round of tension started to build up shortly after Armenia accepted Azerbaijani latest proposal of peace treaty.
