azerbaijan – Azerbaijan Internet Watch

copyright complaints take down Instagram pages of exiled Azerbaijani media – eight outlets call it a coordinated attack

Posted on September 2, 2026 by aiw_admin

This entry draws on reporting by Meydan TV and a joint statement issued by eight Azerbaijani media outlets on August 28.

In the last week of August, Meta blocked access to the Instagram pages of Abzas Media and Toplum TV, two independent outlets now operating in exile, after a series of copyright-infringement complaints. Days earlier, Facebook and Instagram blocked the opposition newspaper Azadlıq’s pages and the Instagram page of Azərbaycan Saatı on the same grounds. Meydan TV and HamamTimes have faced similar complaints at various points over the past year.

On August 28, eight outlets – Abzas Media, Meydan TV, Toplum TV, Azadlıq, HamamTimes, Azərbaycan Saatı, Qəzetçi and Mikroskop Media – issued a joint statement describing the complaints as part of a wider campaign to silence independent journalism, rather than a series of unrelated technical disputes.

What happened

Abzas Media’s acting director Gunel Safarova told Meydan TV that the outlet received four copyright complaints between August 22 and 25. The flagged posts were:

a video originally produced by the Azadlıq newspaper;
a video built on an interview first published by Musavat.com;
a video distributed by HamamTimes;
a short clip of the 2022 Göyçay flooding taken from social media.

In each case, Safarova said Abzas Media credited the original source. None of the complaints came from those sources. HamamTimes – which describes Abzas Media as a close partner – told Meydan TV it filed no complaint with Meta and condemned the takedown.

Toplum TV’s editor Parvana Gurbanli described a similar pattern: the outlet was reported over a video of the August 3 landslide in Baku’s Xətai district that buried several cars. The footage came from the official YouTube channel of the state-funded public broadcaster İctimai TV, with attribution. The complainant claimed it came from his personal profile.

The signature of a coordinated campaign

What distinguishes this episode from the routine misuse of takedown tools is the paper trail. According to Abzas Media, although the complaints were submitted under different names, several used the same email address registered to one individual, “Farid Guliyev.” The “original content” links supplied by the complainants did not point to their own accounts but to the actual publishers – Azadlıq, Musavat.com and HamamTimes – none of which had complained. The joint statement adds that other complaints filed under different names repeated the same details, wording and structure.

The outlets have not been able to establish independently who organized the complaints. But the reuse of a single email address across multiple identities, complaints against unrelated content published at different times, and the near-simultaneous targeting of at least six outlets point to a single origin rather than a series of coincidences. Meta’s automated systems accepted the complaints, removed the posts, and – once enough strikes accumulated – deactivated entire accounts. The outlets say Meta requested no evidence of ownership at any stage.

Why this matters more for exiled media

For outlets that can no longer operate inside Azerbaijan, Meta’s platforms are not a supplementary distribution channel; they are the primary way to reach an audience at home. Their websites have been blocked in the country for years – Meydan TV, Azadlıq, Azərbaycan Saatı and Turan TV since 2017, Abzas Media and Toplum TV since the crackdown that began in November 2023. Their Baku-based staff are in prison: Abzas Media’s team received seven- to nine-year sentences in June 2025, upheld on appeal in April; the Toplum TV defendants received 11 to 15 years on July 27; and the Meydan TV case has ensnared eleven journalists. More than 25 journalists are currently behind bars.

As Safarova told Meydan TV, with no staff left in the country and the websites blocked, the only remaining lever against these outlets is to get their social media accounts shut down.

Not a new tactic – a refined one

Azerbaijan Internet Watch has documented the abuse of platform takedown mechanisms against critics for years. The pattern that emerged in August is a more industrialized version of what we have seen before:

2020 – opposition Musavat party accounts in January; arqument.az’s Facebook page in June (11,000 likes, 12,000 followers and months of posts deleted); bastainfo.com in September (5,000 followers and content back to 2017 wiped). In June 2020, someone holding activist Rustam Ismayilbeyli’s national ID card requested a password reset on his Facebook account – a reminder that the state, not the user, holds the documents platforms use to verify identity.
March 2021 – Sancaq TV. Unable to hack Mehman Huseynov’s Facebook page, perpetrators created several fake “Sancaq TV” pages and used them to report the genuine page as the impostor. His Instagram account had already been taken via spoofed Instagram SMS messages.
April 2022 – Humans of Azerbaijan. After Huseynov recovered the hijacked “Humans of Azerbaijan” page, the perpetrators submitted his own ID to Facebook to prove they were the “real” owner, then filed identical complaints against every page he administered. Facebook responded by blocking all of Huseynov’s accounts, including his personal profile.
2021–2022 – Toplum TV, three times over. Its Facebook page was hijacked in September 2021 (16,000 followers lost), November 2021 (via SMS interception of a founder’s 2FA code – a technique that requires a mobile operator’s cooperation), and September 2022 (26,000 followers and two weeks of content deleted). In the same period, HamamTimes’ website was hacked and its archive wiped.
2022 – Azad Söz. Videos investigating the state oil company and a relative of its former president were removed from YouTube on the basis of NetzDG complaints and restored only after third-party intervention; the outlet then reported trolls combing its archive for old images to mass-report as community-standards violations, and its TikTok account was shut down in May. During the September 2022 border clashes, mass fake reporting got the Facebook profiles of activist Giyas Ibrahim (six days) and Azad Söz founder Tural Sadiqli suspended.
March 2023 – RLC. The Facebook page of the online outlet RLC was hijacked and a year’s content deleted. As AIW noted then, Facebook has never – in any Azerbaijani case we know of – helped recover deleted content.
September 2023 – Hürriyyət. A Baku court ordered the YouTube channel of the online outlet blocked at the Prosecutor General’s request, after a guest criticized the Defense Ministry – the overt, legal route to the same end.
March 2024 – Toplum TV. Hours after police raided the outlet’s Baku office and detained its staff, its social media accounts were compromised and all 3,600 videos on its YouTube channel deleted.
2025 As AIW documented in December, HamamTimes’ Instagram account was suspended for 16 days in April 2025 over an unsubstantiated “breach of intellectual property rights” after it covered a data breach at Kapital Bank; Azad Söz lost YouTube videos to bogus court orders; Mukhtarli’s TikTok was closed by the platform, then blocked inside the country; and on December 16 Meydan TV’s Instagram page, with close to a million followers, was suspended over a copyright complaint filed by a sitting member of parliament, Ülvi Quliyev. Meta rejected the counter-notice.

The 2019- 2020 attacks targeted one activist at a time with amateurish, traceable complainants, largely hacks and hijacks. From there onwards, the emphasis shifted to weaponizing the platforms’ own trust-and-safety tools: impersonation reports, identity-verification disputes, community-standards mass reporting, NetzDG complaints, and finally, copyright strikes, which carry the heaviest automatic penalties and the weakest verification. Read together, what is happening in Azerbaijan is a sign of a deliberate campaign targeting exiled media at once.

The bigger picture

The account takedowns land in the middle of a legislative and institutional overhaul that has made the state’s own censorship tools far more powerful:

In June 2026, authorities set up the National Cybersecurity Agency, which concentrates website blocking, traffic filtering, and personal data oversight in one presidentially supervised body. OC Media’s website was blocked the same month.
In July 2026, parliament expanded extrajudicial blocking to cover “defamation,” “insult,” and undefined “false information.”
Also, as of July 2026, new rules require Meta, TikTok, and other platforms to register locally, open offices in Baku, and respond to government data requests, with fines and blocking as penalties for non-compliance.

Domestically, the state no longer needs a court to block a website. What it cannot do unilaterally is remove content hosted on foreign platforms – and that is precisely the gap that mass copyright complaints fill. The complaints outsource censorship to Meta’s automated enforcement, bypassing the platform’s human review and the need for any legal process.

What the outlets are asking for

The joint statement asks Meta and other platforms to treat the complaints as a possible coordinated attack rather than a stack of individual notices: to investigate the source of the complaints, the reuse of identities and email addresses, whether complainants actually own the material they claim, and whether the reporting mechanism is being deliberately abused. It asks Meta to urgently review and restore the deactivated accounts and build safeguards so automated moderation cannot be turned into a censorship tool through coordinated reporting. It also urges platforms to consider reports from international press-freedom and human rights organizations on Azerbaijan when weighing complaints that originate there.

From the Azerbaijani government, the outlets demand an end to the campaign against independent media – the arrests, prosecutions, website blocks and now the digital attacks – and the release of imprisoned journalists.

Popular Front activist jailed over social media posts

Posted on July 31, 2026August 13, 2026 by aiw_admin

On July 31, Elmar Piriyev, an activist with the Tovuz district branch of the Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXCP), was placed under administrative detention for ten days. According to information the party provided to Meydan TV, the detention followed critical posts he made on social media.

Piriyev had been out of contact since July 27. The party’s organizational department head, Sagif Gurbanov, said Piriyev had reported being summoned to the Tovuz district police station that afternoon; his detention only became known afterward. He has reportedly been subjected to administrative detention in Tovuz previously for his political activity.

Why this matters for online speech

The case is a routine but instructive example of how criticism published online is punished offline. Administrative detention, imposed in a same-day hearing, without the evidentiary standards or appeal timelines of criminal proceedings, has become the low-cost instrument of choice against activists whose visibility is primarily digital. The formal charge in such cases is typically disobedience to police rather than anything speech-related, which keeps the online origin of the case out of the court record entirely. Piriyev is not an isolated instance: activist Anar Huseynov received 30 days in June, and Kanan Ismayil 30 days on July 22.

The multi-day period during which family and colleagues could not locate Piriyev is itself a recurring feature, and one that directly suppresses the online response an arrest would otherwise generate.

More than 20 AXCP members and activists are currently jailed, including party chairman Ali Karimli. The Union for the Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan lists 328 political prisoners in its most recent count. Azerbaijani authorities reject the characterization, maintaining that those detained face liability for specific criminal acts rather than their political views.

Meta, TikTok, and other social media platforms to face mandatory registration and local presence requirements in Azerbaijan [Updated Aug 13]

Posted on July 6, 2026August 13, 2026 by aiw_admin

[Update August 2026] Parliament passed the amendments as Law No. 431-VIIQD on June 30, 2026, and on August 5, 2026, President Ilham Aliyev signed an implementing decree in Baku assigning enforcement powers, setting institutional deadlines, and bringing the accompanying sanctions in the Code of Administrative Offenses into effect.

The package, first tabled in early June, requires global social media platforms, for the first time, to register in the country or establish a local representative office, verify users’ ages, and enforce a higher minimum age.

Under the adopted law:

Persons under 16 are barred from opening social media accounts.
Platforms must verify users’ ages.
Platforms must establish a representative office or register in Azerbaijan.
Platforms must respond to requests from state bodies within five working days.
Non-compliant platforms face fines, an advertising ban, and phased throttling of their internet traffic.

The advertising ban and traffic-throttling mechanisms are notable additions relative to what was publicly described during the drafting stage, when discussion centered on fines and outright blocking.

Oversight of the social media platforms subject to age restrictions falls primarily to the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport.

On specific questions the ministry acts jointly with, or in the capacity of, security bodies:

Powers under Article 13-4.4 of the Law on Information are exercised jointly by the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport and the State Security Service (DTX).
Powers under Articles 13-4.10 and 13-4.14, and under Article 388-4.3.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, are exercised by the ministry acting as the National Cybersecurity Agency — the agency is not a separate legal entity here but a capacity in which the ministry acts.
Awareness and education measures under Article 13-4.14 also involve the Ministry of Science and Education and the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs.
The Media and Broadcasting Council is “recommended” to conduct regular public awareness activities on the compliant use of age-restricted platforms once the law enters into force.

The decree also amends the list of officials empowered to draw up administrative-offense protocols, adding Article 388-4 cases and assigning those under Articles 388-4.3.4 and 388-4.3.5 to officials acting on behalf of the ministry in its capacity as the National Cybersecurity Agency.

The direct involvement of the State Security Service in administering a regime publicly justified on child-protection grounds is the single most significant institutional detail in the decree, worth noting and keeping in mind, given the country’s overall information-controls environment.

The sanctions adopted in the Code of Administrative Offenses are considerably lower than the 100,000–300,000 AZN range reported while the package was still in draft:

Violation	Officials	Legal entities
Failure to submit information to the authorized body, missing deadlines, or submitting false information	6,000–7,000 AZN	15,000–20,000 AZN
Platform providers failing to answer official requests within five working days, or distorting information	7,000–8,000 AZN	25,000–30,000 AZN
Violation of the rules on safe use of platforms	8,000–9,000 AZN	35,000–40,000 AZN
Repeat violation within one year	9,000–10,000 AZN	45,000–50,000 AZN

For companies the size of Meta, Google, or TikTok, these sums are immaterial. The operative leverage in the regime is not the fine but the escalation ladder behind it: advertising bans, phased traffic reduction, and blocking.

Alongside the platform provisions, the latest amendments to the Law on Information expand the list of circumstances in which internet resources can be temporarily blocked without a court decision. The grounds now include insult and defamation, information that violates privacy, promotion of narcotics, disinformation that poses a threat to public safety, and other categories of content.

This is the change with the broadest implications for online speech generally, and it travels in the same legislative vehicle as the child-safety provisions. Insult and defamation in particular have long been the charges of choice against critical online voices in Azerbaijan; making them a basis for administrative blocking without judicial review removes what limited procedural check previously existed.

The law prohibits the creation of social media accounts for children under 16, above the minimum age of 13 that most platforms currently apply. Existing accounts will be reviewed after the law takes effect, and accounts for which the holders’ ages cannot be verified will be deleted. Users aged 16–18 are subject to parental consent and oversight, special safety measures, content and advertising restrictions, and geolocation limits.

Parts of this entry are based on reporting published by Qəzetçi. Below is a translated, edited, and expanded version of the original.

Azerbaijan’s parliament (Milli Majlis) is debating a package of amendments to the Law on Information, Informatization and Protection of Information and the Law on the Protection of Children from Harmful Information that would, for the first time, formally require global social media platforms to register in the country, open local representative offices, and enforce a higher minimum age for users.

Under the draft, platforms that fail to comply face financial sanctions of 100,000 to 300,000 AZN, as well as the possibility of being blocked in the country. According to Farid Pardashunas, a board member of the Press Council, platforms will be given 12 months to comply once the law enters into force, and companies such as Meta, Google, and TikTok would be expected to open offices in Baku and set up Azerbaijani-language support services — a model he compared to neighboring Turkey.

Age restrictions raised from 13 to 16

The amendments, under discussion since early June, would prohibit the creation of social media accounts for children under 16, above the minimum age of 13 that most platforms currently apply. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat, and other networks would reportedly fall within the law’s scope. Existing accounts would be reviewed after the law takes effect, and accounts whose holders’ ages cannot be verified would be deleted. Users aged 16–18 would be subject to parental consent and oversight, special safety measures, content and advertising restrictions, and geolocation limits.

Age verification, according to Havva Huseynli, head of the cooperation and communication sector at the Electronic Security Service, would rely on cross-checking bank card data (via temporary blocking of funds), email, and mobile phone numbers. Huseynli said personal data would be used solely for age verification and would be deleted immediately if a match is not confirmed. The proposed changes were also discussed at a June 10 meeting between the Presidential Administration and NGO representatives.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and Education has already moved ahead with its own restrictions. Deputy Minister Firudin Gurbanov said on June 8 that access to TikTok has been blocked in schools, that internet filtering is applied to schoolchildren’s access more broadly, and that videos on more than 200 “dangerous topics” have been restricted.

Tax registration as a parallel track

Separately, starting September 2026, foreign digital service providers operating in Azerbaijan’s e-commerce market with an annual turnover exceeding 10,000 USD will be required to register electronically with the tax authorities. The State Tax Service announced on May 10 that ten foreign digital service providers — including Apple, Adobe, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, and Chess.com — have already registered. Notably, Meta’s platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), which provide e-commerce services in Azerbaijan, are absent from the published list.

Experts warn of vague criteria, privacy risks, and potential for abuse

Internet technology expert Osman Gunduz noted that Azerbaijan has 17-year-olds building AI businesses, coding, launching startups, and competing in international olympiads and hackathons — often with digital skills exceeding those of their parents. Gunduz also warned that the proposed verification methods (mobile number, email, bank card) can be circumvented — a child can simply use a parent’s phone or card — while leaving verification to the platforms themselves creates the risk of transferring identity data of millions of users to foreign companies.

Lawyer Yalchin Imanov told Qəzetçi that protecting minors online is a normal legislative practice, pointing to Australia’s law, in force since December of last year, as the first of its kind. But he stressed that such changes must go through public consultation first — something absent in Azerbaijan, where restrictions on information sources and social networks surface either only during parliamentary debates or after adoption. “That is the dangerous side of the matter,” he said. Imanov also noted the ambiguity of what the “200+ dangerous topics” restricted in schools actually cover, at a time when access to pornographic and other content remains freely available in the country. Given the authorities’ track record of intolerance toward freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, he said, the possibility that minors’ access to such sources will be restricted cannot be ruled out.

According to available figures, Azerbaijan has 7.6 million social media users — 1.65 million on Facebook, 4.73 million on Instagram, and over 6 million on TikTok, with WhatsApp the most active messaging app. The state’s interest in platforms is not limited to regulation: as Qazqazinfo reported back in 2024, the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) has invested 179 million USD in Meta.

Background: previous attempts to monitor and control social media platforms

The current draft is the most concrete step yet in a longer trajectory of state efforts to bring social media under regulatory control, which Azerbaijan Internet Watch has documented over the years:

The 2017 amendments to the Law on Information. First adopted in 1998 as a technical regulation, the Law on Information, Informatization and Protection of Information was converted into a content-regulation instrument through restrictive amendments introduced on March 10, 2017 — the same law now being amended to cover platform registration. Together with the Code of Administrative Offenses (Articles 388 and 388-1), it has served as the primary legal basis for blocking websites and prosecuting online speech, see AIW’s coverage of the legal framework.
Prosecutor General’s Office as a de facto content regulator. AIW’s May 2022 legal analysis, “Who regulates content online in Azerbaijan”, documented the pattern of the Prosecutor’s Office issuing warnings and administrative charges against social media users, bloggers, and website editors for “disseminating prohibited information” — a practice that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, when one MP even proposed a special unit to monitor social media platforms and hold users spreading “rumors” accountable.
Press Council proposals and the local-representation agenda. As early as 2020–2022, the Press Council proposed establishing a commission with the Prosecutor’s Office to regulate the media and floated regulating social media platforms. Media law expert Khalid Aghaliyev assessed at the time that these proposals were linked to the state’s intention to have platforms open representative offices in Azerbaijan and then use those offices to consolidate control over the platforms — precisely the mechanism now written into the draft amendments.
The 2022 Media Law. Adopted by parliament in December 2021 and signed in February 2022 despite widespread domestic and international criticism, the Law on Media extended restrictive registration and licensing requirements to online media and journalists. AIW’s legal opinion “New Media Law: implications for online media/journalism in Azerbaijan” detailed its adverse implications, and the mandatory media registry it created has since been used to deny registration to independent outlets.
The March 2026 presidential decree. The current amendments follow directly from a decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev on March 1, 2026, focused on children’s online safety, which introduced age restrictions on registering for social platforms and instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to draft implementing legislation within three months — a timeline consistent with the amendments now before parliament.
Expanding regulatory ambitions. The move also comes amid a broader push to regulate the digital sphere, including the government’s recent initiative to regulate AI-generated content and the creation of a new Digital Development Council in February 2026.

Viewed against this background, the framing of the current amendments around child safety mirrors earlier legislative moves in which protective language accompanied provisions that expanded the state’s leverage over online platforms and speech. The combination of mandatory local representation, steep fines, and blocking powers replicates the model adopted in Turkey and Russia — a model that in both countries has been used to pressure platforms into removing content and handing over user data.

Activist Ahmad Mammadli Sentenced to 6 Years

Posted on March 16, 2026March 17, 2026 by aiw_admin

On March 16, the Baku Serious Crimes Court held a hearing in the case of public activist and founder of Yoldash Media, Ahmad Mammadli.

The state prosecutor had requested a 9-year prison sentence.

Following deliberations, the court sentenced Mammadli to 6 years in prison.

Mammadli was detained on May 6, 2025, and formally remanded in custody on May 8. He is accused of inflicting serious knife injuries to an individual identified as Vugar Dunyamaliyev.

He was charged under:

Article 126.2.4 (intentional infliction of serious bodily harm)
Article 221.3 (hooliganism involving the use of a weapon)

Mammadli denies the charges, stating that his arrest is linked to his journalistic activities.

Azerbaijan Moves to Regulate AI-Generated Content

Posted on March 14, 2026March 23, 2026 by aiw_admin

Azerbaijan’s parliament is debating two draft laws that would establish the country’s first legal framework for AI-generated content. One bill would criminalise the creation of AI-generated sexually explicit content featuring real individuals without their consent, carrying a prison sentence of up to seven years. A second bill would require all AI-generated content to be clearly labelled as such, with fines of ₼80–₼150 (roughly $50–$90) for unlabelled material.

Parliamentary committees reviewed both bills in March. Human rights lawyer Yalchin Imanov welcomed the initiative as a legal first for Azerbaijan, but cautioned that its practical application remains unclear, noting that the country has a history of applying laws selectively to protect figures in power. ICT expert Osman Gunduz acknowledged the global urgency of regulating deepfakes and AI-generated sexual abuse material, but raised implementation concerns — particularly around how authenticity will be verified, what level of disclosure will be required, and whether vague enforcement mechanisms might create new legal risks for journalists and news organisations. He warned that without clear enforcement frameworks, bureaucratic obstacles could undermine the laws’ effectiveness and stifle a media and creative sector that will increasingly rely on AI tools to remain competitive.

Opposition Figure Given 25 Days Administrative Detention

Posted on March 10, 2026March 17, 2026 by aiw_admin

Jeyhun Novruzov, head of the Sabail district branch of the Popular Front Party (AXCP), has been sentenced to 25 days of administrative detention.

According to the party, he was found guilty under:

Article 510 (petty hooliganism)
Article 535.1 (failure to obey police orders)

The AXCP states that Novruzov had criticized traffic police on Facebook four days prior, accusing them of unlawfully fining pedestrians. Novruzov was previously sentenced to 10 days in detention in December 2024 under similar charges, which he denied.

Novruzov is not the first activist to receive penalties for online criticism. Recent months have seen continued cases in Azerbaijan where individuals—particularly opposition activists—have been detained after posting criticism of authorities on Facebook. According to recent reporting by independent Meydan TV, numerous individuals who liked and commented on social media posts critical of the authorities have also faced penalties and charges.

Among them is Movsum Mammadov, who was sentenced to 30 days in prison after posting criticism of local authorities on social media; civic activist Konul Ahmadova, who was sentenced to 10 days in administrative detention; and Mushfig Abbasov, who was sentenced to 15 days in administrative detention.

Analysis of anonymized court decisions published on Azerbaijan’s electronic court portal shows that social media activity—particularly Facebook posts—is frequently referenced in administrative cases. Courts typically describe such activity using generalized phrases such as “sharing content on social networks” or “publishing information online,” while avoiding full quotation of the posts themselves. The content is legally framed as violating public order, often characterized as insulting, immoral, or disruptive. Evidence commonly includes screenshots and data extracted from mobile devices. Rather than prosecuting speech directly, courts tend to apply public-order provisions such as petty hooliganism, effectively translating online expression into administrative offenses.

Blogger Manaf Jalilzade Sentenced to 8 Years in Absentia

Posted on March 6, 2026 by aiw_admin

The story was originally published on Meydan TV. This is a translated and edited version.

The Baku Court for Serious Crimes has sentenced Azerbaijani blogger Manaf Jalilzade — who lives abroad — to 8 years in prison. The verdict was delivered in absentia.

Jalilzade, currently residing in Switzerland, was charged with “calls against the state” under two articles of the Criminal Code: incitement to mass disorder and calls against the constitutional order. Prosecutors alleged he shared footage from a 2019 protest near the UN building in Geneva on YouTube, and between 2023 and 2025, published videos inciting violence against the government.

Switzerland’s Federal Ministry of Justice had previously rejected Azerbaijan’s extradition request, citing risks of torture and denial of a fair trial if he were returned. Jalilzade denies all charges, calling them baseless.

Broader Context

His case is part of a wider pattern. On December 26, 2025, a Baku court sentenced another group of diaspora bloggers in absentia: Gurban Mammadov and Tural Sadiqli each received 14 years, while five others received 9-year sentences. Most of the defendants reject the charges as politically motivated.

In recent years, Azerbaijan has opened criminal cases against numerous bloggers and activists living abroad, with charges typically including incitement to mass unrest, calls to armed uprising, terrorism, and fraud.

Azerbaijan Uses Vague ‘Immorality’ Law to Imprison Critics

Posted on February 23, 2026March 23, 2026 by aiw_admin

Azerbaijan is now actively imprisoning civic activists and government critics under new administrative legislation signed into law by President Ilham Aliyev on 26 January 2026. The amendments, approved by parliament on 15 January, classify ‘immoral activity on social media directed against society and national morality’ as petty hooliganism — a shift from criminal to administrative liability that allows authorities to detain individuals immediately, without a criminal conviction.

On 5 February, activist Movsum Mammadov from the Kurdamir district was sentenced to 30 days in administrative detention for Facebook posts documenting poor living conditions in his community and criticising local authorities’ inaction. Friends reported that his critical posts were deleted from his account shortly after his arrest, and he became unreachable.

Under the new framework, ‘disrespectful actions’ on social media carry fines ranging from ₼50 ($30) to ₼2,000 ($1,200) depending on the circumstances and whether it is a repeat offence, and administrative arrest of up to 30 days, or up to two months for repeat offences.

Human rights lawyers have condemned the legislation as deliberately vague. Yalchin Imanov told OC Media that the broad language violates the principle of legal certainty — a foundational principle of law requiring that rules be clear, unambiguous, and have predictable consequences. He characterised the law as enabling total state control and driving widespread self-censorship. Fariz Namazli added that, unlike the previous criminal framework — which required a guilty verdict and was thus harder to apply swiftly — administrative liability can be imposed immediately, giving the state a far more powerful and instant tool to silence dissent. He noted that the previous law linked petty hooliganism to a breach of public order; the new law replaces this with the undefined concept of ‘manifest contempt for society’.

Movsum was not the only social media user. Also in February, Zeinab Zeinalli, a 25-year-old content creator known online as ‘Koti’ with approximately 300,000 followers, was remanded in custody for eight days after being charged with publishing obscene statements and openly disrespecting society. The Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed the charges. Pro-government outlet Okhu.az reported that Zeinalli’s prior offence — a ₼600 ($350) fine for promoting illegal gambling on Instagram in November 2025 — was a factor in the court’s decision to detain rather than fine her. She admitted in court to having insulted users who criticised her online, expressed remorse, and pledged to change her behaviour.

However, the crackdown on TikTokers predates the new law. According to OC Media reporting, Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry had detained or summoned over 60 TikTok users in the first three months of 2024 alone for content deemed contrary to moral values, particularly during live broadcasts. At the time, the ministry’s spokesperson could not specify which articles of the administrative code the TikTokers were charged under, reflecting the legal ambiguity that preceded the January amendments.

Among those recently arrested for online content are also TikTokers Sardar Majnunov (Serdar Inanki) and Rena Jafarova (Renka), who were detained on 17 February for allegedly publishing content with ‘obscene expressions or gestures’. Majnunov was sentenced to 20 days in jail, while Jafarova was fined ₼750 ($440), with the court granting her leniency due to having an underage child. In early February, queer TikToker Salman Mammadov, who used his page Velizarofficial primarily to fundraise for sick people and children, was arrested and sentenced to 30 days of detention for ‘promoting immorality’.

Human rights lawyer Fariz Namazli told OC Media that the legislation remains deeply flawed: there are no precise criteria defining what constitutes offensive, immoral, or morality-violating expression, and courts have consistently failed to justify why specific posts are deemed contrary to national values.

Azerbaijani Journalists and Bloggers Under Threat Across Europe

Posted on February 18, 2026February 25, 2026 by aiw_admin

The story was originally published on Meydan TV. The version below is a translated and streamlined version of the original article.

The reach of Azerbaijan’s crackdown has increasingly extended beyond its borders. Journalists, bloggers, and activists living in exile across Europe have reported being surveilled, followed, and threatened — raising alarms about transnational repression.

On February 18, journalist Emin Huseynov published a video from Geneva, saying he had been followed by unknown individuals, just one day after publicly challenging President Aliyev at the Munich Security Conference.

On February 22, blogger Qabil Mammadov reported in a live YouTube broadcast from Europe that two men had been detained near the home of Alemdar Bunyadov, a member of the Muslim Unity Movement in exile, and that weapons had been found in their vehicle. During the same broadcast, blogger Mehman Huseynov — who had published a series of videos about the President’s daughter-in-law, Alyona Aliyeva — stated that he was being followed by a car.

Mehman Huseynov told Meydan TV that after publishing the videos, he began receiving death threats via social media and various online platforms. He said that members of his family in Baku — his father and brother — had been taken to the State Security Service and shown intimate videos of him, in an apparent attempt to intimidate and silence him. “We had already initiated formal procedures in the country where I live, citing a threat to my life,” he said. He also noted that MP Razi Nurullayev had called for his punishment from the floor of the Azerbaijani parliament in December, in connection with his posts about the police.

Journalist and former political prisoner Afgan Mukhtarli, who lives in Germany, told Meydan TV that the Azerbaijani authorities have a documented history of conducting operations against critics abroad. He cited the cases of Rauf Mirqadirov, who was abducted; of Bayram Mammadov, who died in mysterious circumstances in Turkey; of Vugar Rza, who died similarly in Belgium; of Huseyn Bakikhanov, who was openly murdered in Tbilisi; and of Vidadi Isgandarli, who was killed in France. Most recently, he noted, Mohammed Mirzali had survived armed and knife attacks in France. “Taking all this into account, the lives of Azerbaijani political emigrants, bloggers, and journalists are under real threat,” Mukhtarli said.

He named those he believes are currently being targeted: Ganimat Zahid, editor-in-chief of Azadliq newspaper; blogger Qabil Mammadov; journalist Emin Huseynov and his brother Mehman Huseynov; and religious figures Alemdar Bunyadov and Orkhan Agayev.

Mukhtarli urged those receiving threats to report them immediately to the law enforcement and intelligence services of their host countries, to avoid traveling alone, to stay in populated areas, to refrain from going out late at night, and to have their phones checked for spyware and location-tracking software. “Pay very serious attention to personal security,” he warned.

Mehman Huseynov confirmed that German criminal police had placed his home and the surrounding area under surveillance. “I have been assigned protection, and I am not leaving the house,” he said. He added that French, German, and Swiss criminal police are now collaborating to counter transnational crimes targeting Azerbaijani exiles. Ganimat Zahid, living in France, is also said to be under serious threat.

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