On 10 July 2026, Azerbaijan’s parliament adopted amendments to the Law on Information, Informatization and Information Protection, significantly broadening the executive’s power to block internet resources without prior judicial authorization.
What changed
Before these amendments, extrajudicial (warrantless) blocking was restricted to genuine emergencies – defined as situations in which state or public interests were under threat or lives were in immediate danger. The amended law now permits extrajudicial blocking of websites that allegedly contain: defamation or insult of individuals; invasion of private or family life; promotion of illegal drugs; pornographic material; promotion of gambling; content encouraging suicide; films or games lacking age-rating disclosure; or “false information that could endanger public safety” – a deliberately vague category with no statutory definition. The blocking authority remains the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport.
How we got here
The law was originally adopted in 1998, when internet blocking required a court order. A 2017 amendment introduced Article 13-3, permitting temporary extrajudicial blocking in urgent cases with mandatory court notification within five days. Shortly after 2017, Meydan TV (meydan.tv), Azadlıq Radio (azadliq.org), Azadlıq newspaper (azadliq.info), Turan TV, and Azərbaycan Saatı were blocked under this provision. Further expansions in 2020–21 added “false information of public significance” as a blocking ground during the pandemic and the Second Karabakh War. The July 2026 amendments represent the broadest expansion to date, removing the “emergency” limitation entirely for the newly added categories.
Expert assessment
Lawyer Ruslan Əliyev identified the core risk: under the previous framework, even formal judicial proceedings provided some documentary record and a basis for appeal. Under the new framework, a single official can block content in seconds. “First, the blocking happens, then you become the foot soldier chasing to get it unblocked.” He noted that the new grounds – defamation, insult, false information – lack precise legal definitions, making it impossible to distinguish between legitimate content removal and the suppression of critical journalism.
Parallel social media regulation
The same legislative period also produced new rules requiring social media platforms serving Azerbaijani users to verify user ages (minimum 16), establish local registration or representation in Azerbaijan, and respond to government data requests. These measures follow a pattern across the South Caucasus and Central Asia of requiring platform localization as a precondition for lawful operation, enabling domestic legal pressure on otherwise internationally domiciled companies.
Relevance for internet freedom monitoring
The July 2026 amendments consolidate Azerbaijan’s extrajudicial blocking architecture and make it applicable to a wider set of content categories without any statutory definition of what qualifies. The vagueness of “false information endangering public safety” and “insult” creates categorical overlap with content that Azerbaijan’s independent press regularly produces – investigative reporting into officials, criticism of government policy, and human rights documentation. Combined with the existing blocking of major independent outlets since 2017, and the practice of blocking government websites from abroad (documented by Meydan TV in May 2026), the amendments represent a significant further restriction on both domestic and diaspora access to independent information.