The European Platform for Democratic Elections strongly condemns the recent wave of crackdown on citizen election observers, human right defenders and independent journalists in Azerbaijan.

Yesterday, our colleague Anar Mammadli, head of EPDE member organization Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), which has been engaged in citizen election monitoring in Azerbaijan since 2001, was arrested and jailed for nearly four months of pre-trial detention. This is the second time Mammadli has become a target of persecution. In 2013, Azerbaijani authorities sentenced Mammadli to more than five years in prison for alleged tax evasion, but in reality for openly criticizing the rigged 2013 presidential elections. While serving his sentence of two and a half years in prison, Mammadli was awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Less than two weeks ago, on April 18, another prominent election expert and journalist Imran Aliyev, was unjustly arrested at Baku International Airport and subjected to brutal violence and coercion after his arrest.

These detentions are allegedly linked to the “Abzas Media case,” which targets investigative journalism exposing corruption within Azerbaijani authorities, including the president’s Aliyev family, and shedding light on corruption in the reconstruction of Nagorno-Karabakh. The “Abzas case” appears to be a tool used to persecute prominent civil society leaders, citizen election observers, and independent media under the dubious allegations of receiving “illegal funds” from international institutions.

The arrests of Anar Mammadli and Imran Aliev on trumped-up charges are taking place in parallel with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Berlin. On April 26 Aliyev stressed at a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Azerbaijan has unrestrained media freedom, manifested by access to the Internet.

The reality, however, looks far different. The crackdown on civil society has intensified over the past year, with journalists, opposition activists, and human rights defenders being targeted. Many have been forced into exile to evade persecution.

EPDE sees these recent cases as part of a worrying pattern of political repression in Azerbaijan, echoing similar trends in Russia and Belarus, where opposition leaders and civil society figures have also been the subject of systematic repression. In Russia, Grigory Melkonyants, head of the renowned election observers Movement “Golos”, was arrested in August 2023. In Belarus, our colleagues from Human Rights Center Viasna— the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic, Uladzimir Labkovich, Marfa Rabkova, and Andrei Chapiuk—have been imprisoned for over three years now.

The relentless assault on freedom of expression and political pluralism by Azerbaijani authorities cannot be tolerated.

EPDE calls the Azerbaijan authorities to release journalists, election observers, and human rights defenders immediately. Furthermore, we call on the EU, in particular the German government to follow up on these cases and to advocate for their release.