Hamza Mammadli, 33, was sentenced to six years on January 7, 2025, on spurious terrorism and calls against the state charges, the charges Mammadli denies.
Mammadli, a German citizen of Azerbaijani origin, received asylum in Germany in 2015 and German citizenship in 2022. He traveled to Azerbaijan in 2023 for his wedding and was arrested at the airport.
Mammadli’s charges were linked to a botched assassination attempt against then-mayor of Ganja Elmar Valiyev in 2018 and what the prosecutor’s office alleged Mammadli wrote about the events on social media, specifically a comment Mammadli has written under a post by satirical online platform Hamam Times. During his defense, Mammadli said he had nothing to do with the person who was later arrested for assassinating the then-mayor.
Upon arriving in Azerbaijan in 2023, Mammadli was arrested at the airport, where he was informed there was an arrest warrant issued in 2018.
The Azerbaijani government actively monitors social media platforms to track dissent and control the narrative surrounding its policies. This surveillance includes scrutinizing posts by activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens. Authorities have been known to arrest individuals based on their online activities, especially when content is deemed critical of the government.
The government’s concern over criticisms shared on social media stems from the platform’s ability to rapidly disseminate information and mobilize public opinion. In a country where traditional media is often state-controlled, social media serves as a crucial space for free expression and opposition discourse. Criticism on these platforms can challenge the government’s image, expose corruption, and inspire collective action, which the authorities perceive as threats to their control and stability.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the arrest of activists and journalists in Azerbaijan on charges such as smuggling or incitement, which many international observers view as attempts to suppress free speech and political opposition.
In its official statement released on 6 December 2024, Meydan TV disclosed the sudden detention of seven collaborators—including staff reporters and freelancers. Homes were searched, personal belongings seized, and equipment confiscated. The detainees, charged with “smuggling foreign currency,” included Ramin Jabrayilzade (Deko), Aytaj Ahmadova (Tapdig), Aynur Ganbarova (Elgunesh), Natig Javadli, Khayala Aghayeva, Aysel Umudova, and Ulvi Tahirov. Meydan TV rejected the accusations as “illegal” and groundless, describing the arrests as a continuation of longstanding persecution, including surveillance, travel bans, Pegasus spyware attacks, and prolonged cyber censorship.
On 8 December, the Khatai District Court ordered four-month pretrial detention for the detained Meydan TV journalists. In adjacent developments, a freelance photojournalist, Ahmed Mukhtar, was briefly held on hooliganism charges and fined 20 days. Since then, their pretrial detention periods have been extened, most recently in June 2025.
In February 2025, the crackdown expanded. Several other freelance journalists inlcuding Nurlan Gahramanli (“Nurlan Libre”), Shamshad Agha, editor of Argument.az and collaborator with Meydan TV, and Fatima Mövlamli, another Meydan TV freelance journalist, were arrested on similar accusations.
In May, Ulviyya Ali, a VOA correspondent (not Meydan TV staff but targeted in the same campaign), was arrested in a home raid and accused of currency smuggling. She became the 11th journalist arrested in relation to the “Meydan TV case”.
Below are the names of journalists targeted thus far:
When Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder, was detained in France, the first thing I noticed was that he had arrived in France from Azerbaijan. Naturally, the first question that came to mind was what Durov was doing in Azerbaijan. Thanks to his assistant Julia Vavilova or Juli Maletc, as she is known on Instagram, that question was answered in a few stories in Vavilova’s highlights titled “Azeri.”
The center, established with the support of PASHA Holding group of companies to strengthen the country’s cyber security capabilities, will play the role of the main center for training highly qualified professionals and trainers in this field. It is planned to train more than 1000 people within three years at the Azerbaijan Cyber Security Center, which started its activity on 28 March 2023. At the same time, thanks to the training of 15 trainers at the center, the training of cyber security specialists will be expanded in our country in the future.
Professional teaching staff from Israel, which is considered one of the world’s leading countries in the region in the field of cyber security, will arrive in Azerbaijan and provide trainees with knowledge and skills covering the latest cyber security threats, trends and best practices.
The center has classrooms, training rooms, simulation rooms and laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art technology and equipment. Students will be able to conduct research in these labs and develop various cyber security products.
There are a few interesting points about this text. First, the PASHA holding group of companies, which, in the words of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), is “a conglomerate with interests in banking, as well as construction, insurance, travel, and investments,” owned by Arif Pashayev, the father of the first lady Mehriban Aliyeva. Indeed, with all the baking and other relevant businesses, the PASHA group must ensure none of its user data or transactions are compromised. Unless, of course, it’s the opposite – to cover what OCCRP and others have exposed in various investigations as the lucrative financial schemes that benefit the first family. The answer to this question is a topic for another story.
The second interesting point was mentioning Israel and its “teaching staff.” For pundits following Azerbaijan’s path towards digital authoritarianism, seeing Israel’s name mentioned as “the world’s leading” country in “the field of cyber security” is no surprise. After all, the Azerbaijani government has long benefited from Israel’s surveillance technology, about which I have written at first here and then more at length here.
Finally, regarding students working in the lab, could part of their skill development also include hacking accounts, DDoSing independent news platforms, phishing, and engaging in targeted harassment online, as well as trolling? In 2023, AzNet Watch published this legal overview of the lack of remedies in Azerbaijan to protect targets in cases of online harassment:
There is another body of review within the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport concerning cyberattacks – the Cyber Security Service. While the cyber security service does not possess sanctions against authorities, it does have the authority to review the cyberattack claims and issue general warnings concerning cyberattacks. Furthermore, this body may inform other investigative authorities if the problem concerns these authorities […] In addition, the Cyber Security Center is not an adequate remedy in practice. This body is also not independent and has no relevant investigative legal powers. Consequently, criminal law and administrative law remedies are not effective. In such cases, civil law remedies also cannot be effective due to the burden of proof issues
So what is the point of financing a center when it is not even independent and its use is rather dubious? In any case, perhaps a topic for yet another AzNet Watch investigation.
Finally, knowing all that is known about the Telegram app, especially regarding the platform’s poor track record regarding safety, privacy, data storage, lax standards, and lack of content moderation, combined with his visit to the center that lacks independence and whose purpose remains dubious, what was this visit about? AzNet Watch will continue exploring answers to this question, but in the meantime, Az-Net Watch has documentednumerousexamples of civic activists being targeted via Telegram channels in the past. Here are just a few of them:
According to local media reports, the ministry of education adopted a series of amendments to the “Rules of ethical behavior of educators” document on May 15. According to the changes, educators (as in all teachers and academics employed within the institutions under the Ministry of Education) must adhere to the principles of lawfulness, honest behavior, loyalty, cultural behavior, impartiality, and public trust.
The document, specifically addresses the educators behavior on the social media and while speaking with media platforms, calling on them to follow the rules set out by relevant institutions where they are employed when sharing content on these platforms. Specifically it calls on the educators to abstain from sharing audio and video content that would otherwise result in personal and institution’s reputational damage.
In the previous iteration of the document these warnings did not exist.
The amendments also warn educators to refrain from sharing content critical of state institutions and their directors. Commenting on the amendments the chief adviser of the Regional Education Department, Elshan Ammadov said, “such content [on corruption and poor conditions of educational establishments] spread by individual teachers and other employees of these institutions which has led to criticism in society and damaged the [public] image of [other] employees is wrong. Such content violates the principle of subordination. Instead, it would be approrpriate to share our best achievements in the field of education on social media platforms.”
Famil Khalilov, 34, is Azerbaijani civic activist who was arrested on May 2, 2024. Khalilov was extradited from Sweden in 2023 and since then, lived in Azerbaijan together with his wife and three children. The activist suffers from cerebral palsy and is officially classified with a first degree disability. Authorities however accuse the activist of drug trafficking, the allegation the activist, his lawyer and spouse refute.
If convicted, Khaliov could face anywhere from five to twelve years behind bars.
Khalilov often criticized the state on social media.
Authorities in Azerbaijan often resort to offline punitive measures against online critics.
On May 6, Khalilov’s lawyer Bahruz Bayramov said, the activist was transferred to a medical unit at the detention facility due to deterioration of Khalilov’s health.
On March 6, police stormed the office of Toplum TV, an online news platform in Baku. While the office was searched, the police questioned some fifteen staff members. Among those detained were interns and the tech team. While nine were released after questioning, at least six other journalists were sent to pre-trial custody on bogus smuggling charges.
Shortly after detention, social media accounts belonging to Toplum TV were compromised.
As a result, all 3600 videos on Toplum TV’s YouTube channel were deleted.
Previously Toplum TV’s Facebook page was hacked via SMS interception.
[Update] On February 24, 2025, Baghirov was sentenced to 12 years in prison and a three-year ban on doing journalism.
According to local media reports, SalamNews and InterAz founder and editor Matlab Baghirov appeared in court on February 27, 2024. He has been in pretrial detention since January 31, 2023.
According to pro-government media, Baghirov was accused of operating an Iranian spy network. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed these allegations in an interview with Abzas Media in February 2023, saying the arrests were part of the “special operation against an Iranian spy network.”
“They carried out propaganda in favor of Iran through social networks, abused the freedom of religion in Azerbaijan, and carried out the tasks of the Iranian special services in order to undermine the traditions of tolerance formed in the country,” Elshad Hajiyev, the head of the ministry’s public relations department, told AbzasMedia in February 2023.
In total, some 39 individuals were rounded up, including Baghirov, as a result of the operation.
The Ministry of the Interior also said the group was engaged in acts of provocation and disruption under the guise of religion.
The arrests took place at a time, when relations between Iran and Azerbaijan were at their lowest following an armed attack on an Azerbaijani embassy in the capital of Iran on January 27, 2023. As a result, one embassy security personnel was killed and two others were injured.
Azerbaijan described the attack as a terrorist act and issued a warning to Azerbaijani nationals not to travel to Iran unless necessary.
The investigation against Baghirov was finalized on February 20, 2024.
Farid Suleymanov was arrested on January 8, 2024. He was sentenced to 30-day administrative detention. And although Suleymanov was scheduled for release on February 7 – the day of snap presidential elections – he was instead taken back to BandOtdel – the department for combating organized crime at the Ministry of the Interior.
Suleymanov is an activist, lawyer, and blogger from Azerbaijan. Active on a number of social platforms, Suleymanov ran a TikTok channel called “I saw it, I showed you.” Through his videos, Suleymanov raised awareness of the illegal activities of the traffic police, exposing their unlawfulness. For this, he has been questioned several times but let go. He also informs his audience via his social media channels of other challenges and issues in the country.
According to this video on Suleymanov’s YouTube channel, he was approached by a group of unknown men, who, without introducing themselves, shoved him into a white Mercedes and took him to BandOtdel.
Separately, Az-net Watch received an anonymous email from a reader informing the platform of the blocking of a Russian-language forum www.baku365.com. According to the information shared in the email, all three main mobile operators and local ISPs have blocked access to the website. On what grounds remains unclear. Earlier, Suleymanov’s daughter shared a post about her father’s unlawful arrest and detention.
[Update] On March 3, 2025, Sayadoglu was sentenced to seven years.
Arzu Sayadoglu, known as a blogger who often critiques the state officials and the government, was reportedly arrested on January 28, 2024. According to family and friends, the blogger first went missing after an interview with an opposition YouTube channel, AzadSoz. It was announced two days later that the blogger was arrested and sent into pre-trial detention.
Meydan TV reported that the blogger was sentenced to four months in pre-trial detention and charged with extortion.
In Azerbaijan’s southern region of Lenkoran, residents complained of power cuts. According to reporting by Meydan TV, heavy snowfall in the area since January 14 caused power cuts and disruptions to access to telecommunications across several villages and in the city itself. In one village, there was no internet for a week after the snowfall, residents told Meydan TV. The disruptions have not stopped the ISPs from charging their customers the usual package rate. Officials, including the state energy company Azerisiq, blamed disruptions and access issues on the heavy snowfall, which damaged multiple electricity cables.
After four days of power cuts, residents of Ürgə village protested, blocking the main roads. One village resident who spoke to Meydan TV said more than 350 homes were left without electricity for four days.
Local officials refuted claims of any protests. According to reports by residents, the power was restored shortly after the residents staged the protest.
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