The year 2024 was marked by ‘increased repression and police brutality’ in Azerbaijan. This is stated in the annual report on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan by the human rights organisation ‘Political Prisoners Monitoring Centre’.
A significant increase in the number of political prisoners was noted, the number of which reached 331 by 10 December.
Traditionally, believers are the most numerous among them. However, the trend of the past year was a significant increase in the number of journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders.
The ‘hunt’ for representatives of the so-called ‘5th column’ was conducted by the Interior Ministry. This agency has given its employees the most brutal ‘rights’ up to and including physical violence.
According to media reports, the police used the most extreme measures, and several people suspected of crimes were liquidated on the spot using firearms ‘when they resisted’.
Note that the pro-government media presented the killings of suspects as ‘legitimate measures’.
At the same time, human rights defenders have no possibility to verify whether the use of extreme measures was justified.
At the same time, the human rights organisation points to the growth of drug addiction in the country. However, activists believe that the struggle is conducted only with the use of force, although in the civilised world drug addicts are treated as sick people in need of treatment. In Azerbaijan, drug addicts are a priori considered criminals and are treated accordingly.
Despite the presence of numerous pro-governmental organisations that have declared the struggle against the spread of drug addiction, there is virtually no prevention of drug addiction.
According to official statistics, 30.6 % of criminal offences are committed by drug-dependent citizens. According to official statistics, 36,659 drug addicts are registered in medical centres in the country. According to unofficial data, this figure is many times higher.
At the same time, the law enforcement agencies are abusing the law on compulsory treatment.
Often under the pretext of ‘combating drug trafficking’, the Interior Ministry arrests public activists, members of political parties, journalists and bloggers.
In the course of 2024, such cases resulted in the arrest and conviction of PPFA activists Razi Alyshov and Sahib Mammadzadeh, trade union activists Elvin Mustafayev and Ayhan Israfilov and others. But believers suffer the most from the ‘false struggle’ against drugs. In recent years, about 150 people have been arrested on drug-related charges.
The year 2024 was also marked by the arrests of human rights defenders themselves - Anar Mammadli, head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Education Centre (EMEC); Rufat Safarov, head of the organisation ‘Protection Line’, and Azer Gasymly, director of the Institute of Political Management.
The report cites facts of torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners in the penitentiary service.
The deaths of prisoners have also become more frequent. During 2024 more than 40 cases of deaths were registered in penitentiary institutions, and already several deaths since the beginning of 2025. Officially, the cause of death is declared to be illness. However, there have been reports on social media of deaths due to beatings.
In particular, the violent death of a prisoner of colony number 13, Royal Akhundov, was reported. After the dissemination of this information, the prisoners of this colony were banned from telephone conversations.
Human rights defenders are still not allowed into prisons for monitoring. Non-transparency of officials, law enforcers, restriction of information, persecution of journalists creates conditions for complete disregard of human rights, arbitrariness, arrests, torture, deaths and repressive measures of the Interior Ministry.
* The Political Prisoners Monitoring Centre was established in October 2014 by a group of former prisoners of conscience. The organisation is headed by human rights defender Elshan Hasanov.
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