Incident reports

May 18, activist Elvin Irshadov, known online as “Umari Ali” was reportedly arrested in the city of Lenkoran. A court in Lenkoran sentenced Irshadov to 16days in administrative detention on charges of disobeying police orders on May 19. Irshadov is known for his critical posts online and has been previously warned by city police over […]

Turan, Azerbaijan’s independent news agency was subject to multiple DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks and was briefly blocked.  The incident took place between May 15 through 18. The Agency’s Director, Mehman Aliyev said the hosting provider for the news agency failed due to an overwhelming amount of incoming traffic. In an interview with AIW, […]

[UPDATE] September 4, in an interview with independent Turan News Agency, Ali Karimli confirmed that he remains cut off the internet. His cellular signal also stops functioning after 8 pm every day.  August 6, Baku Court of Appeal rejected to evaluate opposition party leader Ali Karimli and his wife, Samara Seyidova’s complaint against the Ministry of the […]

May 9, Azerbaijani politician, Gultekin Hajibeyli’s Instagram account hacked and taken down. Instead, a fake profile impersonating Hajibeyli was set up, with her private mobile phone number shared publicly in the profile description. Hajibeyli, was targeted online previously. Such attacks are common in Azerbaijan, where opposition politicians and independent activists are targeted online. Account “break-ins”, […]

On the morning of April 22, an independent online news platform, abzas.net noticed strange activity on its website. Not only did the website lose, a month worth of published articles, but that some articles’ headlines were also changed.  In an interview with AIW, the website’s editor Ulvi Hasanli confirmed the attack. Hasanli said, this was […]

On April 21, several cities and administrative districts across the country reported experiencing internet disruptions. The disruptions were reported on DeltaTelecom one of the only two companies in Azerbaijan licensed to connect international internet traffic [the second one being AzerTelecom]. Delta Telecom is considered the backbone internet provider in Azerbaijan and handles most of the […]

As of April 5, residents across Azerbaijan can only leave their apartments having informed local law enforcement via SMS, a phone call or if in possession of a special certificate of employment. Azerbaijan remains among countries, which haven’t declared a “state of emergency”. Instead, they are referring to new restrictions as part of the “strict […]

May 22, member of D18 political movement and administrator of a Facebook page “Say no to corruption”, Jalil Zabitov was arrested and sentenced to five months on hooliganism charges.  April 22, member of opposition Popular Front party, Arif Babayev was sentenced to 30 days in administrative detention on charges of placing prohibited information online under Article […]

In Azerbaijan, a group of activists was targeted online following a non-violent march organized to mark International Women’s Day. The protest was violently dispersed by the police. Those detained were released after questioning. Last year, a similar attempt was quashed by the police. In October 2019, in an attempt to call on the authorities to […]

On March 2, several Facebook pages affiliated with an online news website anews.az were hacked. According to the editor of anews.az Naila Balayeva the hacking came shortly after anews.az published two different stories, on February 27 and then on March 5.  The editor was able to identify the identity of the hacker, who explicitly threatened […]