Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Azerbaijan as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Azerbaijan declared independence in October 1991, amidst the dissolution of the USSR. Following the country’s only competitive presidential election in 1992, this brief democratic period ended when former KGB officer, Heydar Aliyev, seized power in a 1993 military coup. Formally, Azerbaijan is a presidential republic with a separation of powers defined by the constitution. Executive power is held by the President, who is both the head of state and head of government. Under the rule of strongman Ilham Aliyev, a successor to his father Heydar Aliyev, who governed autocratically until his passing in 2003, power has been concentrated within the executive branch and the Aliyev ruling family. Legislative authority is vested in the Milli Majlis (National Assembly), a unicameral parliament composed of 125 deputies, which plays a subordinate role. The judicial branch includes the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and lower courts. In practice, however, the system is characterized by the absolute dominance of the executive branch. To further consolidate dynastic rule, a controversial constitutional referendum in 2016 created the post of First Vice President, to which Aliyev appointed his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, in February 2017. In September 2023, the regime launched a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in the forced displacement of the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population. The European Parliament and international human rights organizations have characterized this military operation and the subsequent exodus as ethnic cleansing conducted by the Aliyev regime.
National elections in Azerbaijan are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to compete and win. The regime maintains a fundamentally non-competitive electoral environment. It achieves this by preemptively eliminating genuine opposition candidates from the ballot and cultivating a heavily skewed playing field that compels remaining opposition forces to boycott elections. To manufacture its desired outcomes and claim overwhelmingly high vote shares, the ruling power relies on widespread voting irregularities and the complete suppression of political pluralism.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The officials suppress independent voices by strictly censoring the information landscape through regulatory weaponization and violently shutting down public assembly. The regime utilizes the judicial system to imprison vocal critics on fabricated charges while dismantling independent civil society groups through legislative strangulation. This environment of severe retaliation is further compounded by the disproportionate persecution of ethnic minorities and the pursuit of exiled dissidents through lethal transnational repression.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The executive branch exercises absolute dominance over the state apparatus, effectively neutralizing any independent institutional checks. The judiciary is utilized primarily to rubber-stamp the repression of political opponents and activists. Simultaneously, the regime restricts the legal profession and oversight mechanisms through targeted legislative reforms, actively retaliating against the few remaining legal professionals who attempt to defend victims of political persecution.
In Azerbaijan, national elections are a sham. The ruling power ensures a non-competitive environment by systematically barring genuine opposition candidates from the ballot, cultivating a severely skewed playing field that compels opposition forces to boycott the process, and engaging in widespread voting irregularities to manufacture desired results, and systematically eliminates political pluralism to skew the playing field, ensuring it claims victory with overwhelmingly high vote shares.
The regime has systematically and unfairly barred real, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from competing in elections. To ensure the absence of genuine rivals, the regime relies on the preemptive arrest and judicial harassment of key critics. For instance, Tofiq Yagublu was detained in December 2023, ahead of the presidential vote, and Anar Mammadli, head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Education Center, was arrested in April 2024, prior to the parliamentary polls. This pattern of incapacitating opponents mirrors the 2020 crackdown, when the administration dissolved the National Assembly and arrested at least eight prominent AXCP members on bogus charges to clear the field.
The mainstream opposition parties have boycotted the elections as a way of protesting the lack of free and fair electoral competition. Faced with a total lack of competitive conditions and the denial of assembly rights, opposition parties have utilized boycotts as a primary form of protest. Most recently, the main opposition forces, including the AXCP and the National Council of Democratic Forces, boycotted both the snap presidential election in February 2024 and the snap parliamentary elections in September 2024, citing a total lack of competitive conditions. Similarly, in 2020, the opposition boycotted the snap parliamentary elections after the regime dissolved the National Assembly and arrested at least eight prominent AXCP members on bogus charges.
The Aliyev regime has engaged in systematic, significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud. Official Baku utilizes ballot stuffing, “carousel” voting, and the fabrication of turnout figures to conceal widespread manipulation. International observers from the OSCE documented serious irregularities during recent cycles, noting signs of unnatural turnout figures and interference by unauthorized persons. To counter these findings, the regime also deployed “fake” international observers to praise the process and legitimize the flawed proceedings.
The regime has skewed the electoral playing field so much so that it generally claims victory with a very high vote share. The ruling establishment secures these results by systematically eliminating political pluralism and maintaining absolute executive dominance, ensuring that elections serve only to ratify the incumbent’s power rather than allow for genuine contestation. This absolute dominance was evident in the February 2024 presidential election, where Ilham Aliyev claimed 92.12% of the vote. The September 2024 parliamentary results reinforced the regime’s absolute dominance: the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) won 68 of 125 seats, with most remaining seats going to so-called “independents” loyal to the government, leaving the assembly devoid of any genuine opposition. These figures mirror previous cycles, such as the 2018 presidential election, where the Central Election Commission announced an 86% victory for Aliyev despite numerous complaints of multiple voting.
In Azerbaijan, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The ruling power maintains this control by strictly censoring the information landscape through regulatory weaponization, utilizing the judicial system to imprison vocal critics on fabricated charges, and violently suppressing public assembly. Furthermore, the authorities systematically dismantle independent civil society groups through legislative strangulation, disproportionately persecute ethnic minorities, and pursue dissidents beyond national borders through transnational repression.
Aliyev’s regime has systematically and heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor. This involves the weaponization of regulatory frameworks to forcefully close independent outlets and create an information vacuum. The regime has leveraged the 2022 “On Media” law to arbitrarily deny registration to approximately 300 independent media outlets as of 2024. In March 2024, following a police raid on the independent outlet Toplum TV, its YouTube channel and social media accounts were hacked, and its content was deleted, an attack widely attributed to state security services, demonstrating the regime’s capability to erase digital archives of dissenting outlets. Retrospectively, the regime practices the strategy of financial pressure. For instance, the country’s most popular critical newspaper, Azadliq, aligned with AXCP, faced financial ruin in 2013 after regime officials won defamation suits, resulting in crippling fines, while the state-run distribution agency (GASID) unlawfully withheld indefinite amounts of the newspaper’s sales revenue to force its bankruptcy.
The regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. This is characterized by the routine use of fabricated criminal charges, ranging from smuggling to money laundering, to imprison vocal critics. In a massive crackdown escalating from late 2023 through 2025, officials arrested over a dozen journalists from independent outlets Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13, including editors Sevinj Vagifgizi and Ulvi Hasanli, who remain in pretrial detention and have reported torture. The repression has also expanded to academia and peace activists; in August 2024, Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral student at Charles University known for his criticism of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, was arrested on treason charges during a visit to Baku. As of mid-2025, human rights defenders estimated the number of political prisoners to be nearly 400. This systematic intimidation builds upon earlier practices, such as the continued incarceration of dozens of activists despite occasional performative pardons that fail to restore their legal rights or clear their criminal records, leaving them vulnerable to rearrest.
State officials have systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. The administration effectively bans freedom of assembly by criminalizing unauthorized protests and employing disproportionate force against demonstrators. In 2024, courts sentenced activists, such as Joshgun Musayev, to lengthy prison terms for their involvement in the peaceful 2023 environmental protests in Soyudlu village, which were brutally suppressed by security forces. Even small-scale gatherings, like the International Women’s Day feminist protest in Baku on March 8, 2024, calling for action against femicide and domestic violence, were immediately surrounded by police to prevent public visibility. These actions enforce a de facto ban on protests in place since 2019, when regime officials ceased issuing permits for demonstrations, subjecting participants of “unsanctioned” rallies to harsh fines and administrative arrests.
Aliyev’s regime has systematically and unfairly shut down independent, dissenting organizations. This involves the use of restrictive legislation to cut off funding and legal status for civil society groups. In 2024 and 2025, the government introduced new punitive fines for civil society organizations (CSOs) violating strict contract registration rules, further creating a legal pretext to paralyze the few remaining groups. During the March 2024 crackdown on CSOs, police raided and sealed the offices of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI) and the III Republic Platform, detaining their leaders, which led to the effective cessation of the organizations’ activities. This follows the pattern set by draconian laws introduced between 2013 and 2015, which made foreign funding for CSOs effectively illegal, forcing more than 50 international organizations, including Transparency International and Oxfam, to suspend their operations in the country.
The regime has systematically and disproportionately undermined marginalized groups’ ability to dissent. This involves the targeted persecution of ethnic minorities, particularly the Talysh and Armenians, who are frequently branded as “separatists” or “foreign agents” to suppress their demands for cultural rights or autonomy. In September 2023, the regime launched a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh that resulted in the forced displacement of the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population—an action widely condemned by the European Parliament and international observers as ethnic cleansing. Following this, the regime intensified its crackdown on Talysh activists. In July 2024, Talysh researcher Igbal Abilov was arrested and, in May 2025, sentenced to 18 years on charges of treason and inciting ethnic hatred. Similarly, in March 2025, Talysh rights activist Zahiraddin Ibrahimov disappeared in Russia only to resurface in a Baku prison, facing treason charges.
The regime has systematically engaged in transnational repression against dissidents abroad. Failing to silence critics domestically, the regime utilizes kidnapping, rendition, and targeted assassinations to strike fear into the exile community. This violence has escalated into lethal attacks on European soil. In September 2024, Vidadi Isgenderli, a vocal critic of the regime, was stabbed to death in his home in Mulhouse, France. This follows a pattern of brazen assaults, including the March 2021 attempted murder of blogger Mahammad Mirzali in Nantes, who was stabbed 16 times and has survived multiple assassination attempts. Similarly, in 2018, exiled journalist Rahim Namazov was shot in Toulouse; while he survived, his wife was killed in the attack. Beyond physical violence, the regime follows a long-established pattern of transnational repression and elimination of minority voices; notably, blogger Elvin Isayev, targeted for his vocal criticism of the president and government corruption, was unlawfully deported from Ukraine in 2019 and subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison, was unlawfully deported from Ukraine in 2019 and imprisoned, while prominent Talysh leader Fakhraddin Aboszoda, extradited from Russia in 2019, died in custody in 2020.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The executive branch completely dominates the state apparatus by utilizing the judiciary to rubber-stamp the repression of critics, subjecting the legal profession and oversight mechanisms to restrictive reforms that neutralize their independence, and systematically retaliating against lawyers who dare to defend political prisoners.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to check, or enabled, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. In the recent crackdown on independent media and civil society, the judiciary acted as a primary engine of repression, routinely rubber-stamping pre-trial detentions and validating fabricated charges. For example, spanning 2024 and 2025, the judiciary judges routinely approved the pre-trial detention of journalists from Abzas Media and Toplum TV while systematically dismissing credible allegations of torture, such as the 58 incidents documented by imprisoned editor Ulvi Hasanli in 2024. As of early 2025, human rights groups reported that the number of political prisoners had risen to more than 400, with courts routinely validating fabricated charges against activists. This recent wave of judicial complicity mirrors long-standing practices; notably, the courts previously sentenced opposition figures like Saleh Rustamov in 2019, on spurious drug charges. Furthermore, the judicial system has consistently failed to implement over 74% of leading judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), particularly those concerning politically motivated arrests and the denial of fair trial rights.
The regime has systematically subjected independent oversight institutions and the legal profession to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Legislative amendments have been utilized to expand executive control over disciplinary bodies and cement loyalists in power, effectively nullifying the legal profession’s ability to defend victims of political persecution. Most recently, in October 2025, the parliament adopted restrictive amendments to the Law “On Advocates and Advocate Activity,” which further eroded the independence of the Bar Association by expanding executive control over xx and allowing for indefinite terms for the Association’s regime-appointed leadership. These measures effectively nullify the legal profession’s ability to defend victims of political persecution. This legislative assault is a continuation of the regime’s strategy to dismantle independent oversight, dating back to the 2016 constitutional referendum that weakened parliamentary oversight over the executive branch by extending the presidential term and creating an unelected Vice Presidency.
Members of the judicial branch and legal profession who rule contrary to regime interests, or who are perceived as a threat, have faced systematic retaliation. State officials use disciplinary proceedings to silence legal defenders through harassment, suspension, and arbitrary administrative detention. Despite November 2024 and January 2025 ECtHR rulings condemning the past arbitrary disbarments of human rights lawyers like Afgan Mammadov and Yalchin Imanov, the regime continues to use disciplinary proceedings to silence legal defenders. In 2024 and 2025, lawyers defending political prisoners, such as Nemat Karimli and Elchin Sadiqov, faced renewed harassment, suspension, and arbitrary administrative detention.
HRF classifies Azerbaijan as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Azerbaijan declared independence in October 1991, amidst the dissolution of the USSR. Following the country’s only competitive presidential election in 1992, this brief democratic period ended when former KGB officer, Heydar Aliyev, seized power in a 1993 military coup. Formally, Azerbaijan is a presidential republic with a separation of powers defined by the constitution. Executive power is held by the President, who is both the head of state and head of government. Under the rule of strongman Ilham Aliyev, a successor to his father Heydar Aliyev, who governed autocratically until his passing in 2003, power has been concentrated within the executive branch and the Aliyev ruling family. Legislative authority is vested in the Milli Majlis (National Assembly), a unicameral parliament composed of 125 deputies, which plays a subordinate role. The judicial branch includes the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and lower courts. In practice, however, the system is characterized by the absolute dominance of the executive branch. To further consolidate dynastic rule, a controversial constitutional referendum in 2016 created the post of First Vice President, to which Aliyev appointed his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, in February 2017. In September 2023, the regime launched a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in the forced displacement of the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population. The European Parliament and international human rights organizations have characterized this military operation and the subsequent exodus as ethnic cleansing conducted by the Aliyev regime.
National elections in Azerbaijan are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to compete and win. The regime maintains a fundamentally non-competitive electoral environment. It achieves this by preemptively eliminating genuine opposition candidates from the ballot and cultivating a heavily skewed playing field that compels remaining opposition forces to boycott elections. To manufacture its desired outcomes and claim overwhelmingly high vote shares, the ruling power relies on widespread voting irregularities and the complete suppression of political pluralism.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The officials suppress independent voices by strictly censoring the information landscape through regulatory weaponization and violently shutting down public assembly. The regime utilizes the judicial system to imprison vocal critics on fabricated charges while dismantling independent civil society groups through legislative strangulation. This environment of severe retaliation is further compounded by the disproportionate persecution of ethnic minorities and the pursuit of exiled dissidents through lethal transnational repression.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The executive branch exercises absolute dominance over the state apparatus, effectively neutralizing any independent institutional checks. The judiciary is utilized primarily to rubber-stamp the repression of political opponents and activists. Simultaneously, the regime restricts the legal profession and oversight mechanisms through targeted legislative reforms, actively retaliating against the few remaining legal professionals who attempt to defend victims of political persecution.
In Azerbaijan, national elections are a sham. The ruling power ensures a non-competitive environment by systematically barring genuine opposition candidates from the ballot, cultivating a severely skewed playing field that compels opposition forces to boycott the process, and engaging in widespread voting irregularities to manufacture desired results, and systematically eliminates political pluralism to skew the playing field, ensuring it claims victory with overwhelmingly high vote shares.
The regime has systematically and unfairly barred real, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from competing in elections. To ensure the absence of genuine rivals, the regime relies on the preemptive arrest and judicial harassment of key critics. For instance, Tofiq Yagublu was detained in December 2023, ahead of the presidential vote, and Anar Mammadli, head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Education Center, was arrested in April 2024, prior to the parliamentary polls. This pattern of incapacitating opponents mirrors the 2020 crackdown, when the administration dissolved the National Assembly and arrested at least eight prominent AXCP members on bogus charges to clear the field.
The mainstream opposition parties have boycotted the elections as a way of protesting the lack of free and fair electoral competition. Faced with a total lack of competitive conditions and the denial of assembly rights, opposition parties have utilized boycotts as a primary form of protest. Most recently, the main opposition forces, including the AXCP and the National Council of Democratic Forces, boycotted both the snap presidential election in February 2024 and the snap parliamentary elections in September 2024, citing a total lack of competitive conditions. Similarly, in 2020, the opposition boycotted the snap parliamentary elections after the regime dissolved the National Assembly and arrested at least eight prominent AXCP members on bogus charges.
The Aliyev regime has engaged in systematic, significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud. Official Baku utilizes ballot stuffing, “carousel” voting, and the fabrication of turnout figures to conceal widespread manipulation. International observers from the OSCE documented serious irregularities during recent cycles, noting signs of unnatural turnout figures and interference by unauthorized persons. To counter these findings, the regime also deployed “fake” international observers to praise the process and legitimize the flawed proceedings.
The regime has skewed the electoral playing field so much so that it generally claims victory with a very high vote share. The ruling establishment secures these results by systematically eliminating political pluralism and maintaining absolute executive dominance, ensuring that elections serve only to ratify the incumbent’s power rather than allow for genuine contestation. This absolute dominance was evident in the February 2024 presidential election, where Ilham Aliyev claimed 92.12% of the vote. The September 2024 parliamentary results reinforced the regime’s absolute dominance: the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) won 68 of 125 seats, with most remaining seats going to so-called “independents” loyal to the government, leaving the assembly devoid of any genuine opposition. These figures mirror previous cycles, such as the 2018 presidential election, where the Central Election Commission announced an 86% victory for Aliyev despite numerous complaints of multiple voting.
In Azerbaijan, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The ruling power maintains this control by strictly censoring the information landscape through regulatory weaponization, utilizing the judicial system to imprison vocal critics on fabricated charges, and violently suppressing public assembly. Furthermore, the authorities systematically dismantle independent civil society groups through legislative strangulation, disproportionately persecute ethnic minorities, and pursue dissidents beyond national borders through transnational repression.
Aliyev’s regime has systematically and heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor. This involves the weaponization of regulatory frameworks to forcefully close independent outlets and create an information vacuum. The regime has leveraged the 2022 “On Media” law to arbitrarily deny registration to approximately 300 independent media outlets as of 2024. In March 2024, following a police raid on the independent outlet Toplum TV, its YouTube channel and social media accounts were hacked, and its content was deleted, an attack widely attributed to state security services, demonstrating the regime’s capability to erase digital archives of dissenting outlets. Retrospectively, the regime practices the strategy of financial pressure. For instance, the country’s most popular critical newspaper, Azadliq, aligned with AXCP, faced financial ruin in 2013 after regime officials won defamation suits, resulting in crippling fines, while the state-run distribution agency (GASID) unlawfully withheld indefinite amounts of the newspaper’s sales revenue to force its bankruptcy.
The regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. This is characterized by the routine use of fabricated criminal charges, ranging from smuggling to money laundering, to imprison vocal critics. In a massive crackdown escalating from late 2023 through 2025, officials arrested over a dozen journalists from independent outlets Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13, including editors Sevinj Vagifgizi and Ulvi Hasanli, who remain in pretrial detention and have reported torture. The repression has also expanded to academia and peace activists; in August 2024, Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral student at Charles University known for his criticism of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, was arrested on treason charges during a visit to Baku. As of mid-2025, human rights defenders estimated the number of political prisoners to be nearly 400. This systematic intimidation builds upon earlier practices, such as the continued incarceration of dozens of activists despite occasional performative pardons that fail to restore their legal rights or clear their criminal records, leaving them vulnerable to rearrest.
State officials have systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. The administration effectively bans freedom of assembly by criminalizing unauthorized protests and employing disproportionate force against demonstrators. In 2024, courts sentenced activists, such as Joshgun Musayev, to lengthy prison terms for their involvement in the peaceful 2023 environmental protests in Soyudlu village, which were brutally suppressed by security forces. Even small-scale gatherings, like the International Women’s Day feminist protest in Baku on March 8, 2024, calling for action against femicide and domestic violence, were immediately surrounded by police to prevent public visibility. These actions enforce a de facto ban on protests in place since 2019, when regime officials ceased issuing permits for demonstrations, subjecting participants of “unsanctioned” rallies to harsh fines and administrative arrests.
Aliyev’s regime has systematically and unfairly shut down independent, dissenting organizations. This involves the use of restrictive legislation to cut off funding and legal status for civil society groups. In 2024 and 2025, the government introduced new punitive fines for civil society organizations (CSOs) violating strict contract registration rules, further creating a legal pretext to paralyze the few remaining groups. During the March 2024 crackdown on CSOs, police raided and sealed the offices of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI) and the III Republic Platform, detaining their leaders, which led to the effective cessation of the organizations’ activities. This follows the pattern set by draconian laws introduced between 2013 and 2015, which made foreign funding for CSOs effectively illegal, forcing more than 50 international organizations, including Transparency International and Oxfam, to suspend their operations in the country.
The regime has systematically and disproportionately undermined marginalized groups’ ability to dissent. This involves the targeted persecution of ethnic minorities, particularly the Talysh and Armenians, who are frequently branded as “separatists” or “foreign agents” to suppress their demands for cultural rights or autonomy. In September 2023, the regime launched a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh that resulted in the forced displacement of the region’s entire ethnic Armenian population—an action widely condemned by the European Parliament and international observers as ethnic cleansing. Following this, the regime intensified its crackdown on Talysh activists. In July 2024, Talysh researcher Igbal Abilov was arrested and, in May 2025, sentenced to 18 years on charges of treason and inciting ethnic hatred. Similarly, in March 2025, Talysh rights activist Zahiraddin Ibrahimov disappeared in Russia only to resurface in a Baku prison, facing treason charges.
The regime has systematically engaged in transnational repression against dissidents abroad. Failing to silence critics domestically, the regime utilizes kidnapping, rendition, and targeted assassinations to strike fear into the exile community. This violence has escalated into lethal attacks on European soil. In September 2024, Vidadi Isgenderli, a vocal critic of the regime, was stabbed to death in his home in Mulhouse, France. This follows a pattern of brazen assaults, including the March 2021 attempted murder of blogger Mahammad Mirzali in Nantes, who was stabbed 16 times and has survived multiple assassination attempts. Similarly, in 2018, exiled journalist Rahim Namazov was shot in Toulouse; while he survived, his wife was killed in the attack. Beyond physical violence, the regime follows a long-established pattern of transnational repression and elimination of minority voices; notably, blogger Elvin Isayev, targeted for his vocal criticism of the president and government corruption, was unlawfully deported from Ukraine in 2019 and subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison, was unlawfully deported from Ukraine in 2019 and imprisoned, while prominent Talysh leader Fakhraddin Aboszoda, extradited from Russia in 2019, died in custody in 2020.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The executive branch completely dominates the state apparatus by utilizing the judiciary to rubber-stamp the repression of critics, subjecting the legal profession and oversight mechanisms to restrictive reforms that neutralize their independence, and systematically retaliating against lawyers who dare to defend political prisoners.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to check, or enabled, the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. In the recent crackdown on independent media and civil society, the judiciary acted as a primary engine of repression, routinely rubber-stamping pre-trial detentions and validating fabricated charges. For example, spanning 2024 and 2025, the judiciary judges routinely approved the pre-trial detention of journalists from Abzas Media and Toplum TV while systematically dismissing credible allegations of torture, such as the 58 incidents documented by imprisoned editor Ulvi Hasanli in 2024. As of early 2025, human rights groups reported that the number of political prisoners had risen to more than 400, with courts routinely validating fabricated charges against activists. This recent wave of judicial complicity mirrors long-standing practices; notably, the courts previously sentenced opposition figures like Saleh Rustamov in 2019, on spurious drug charges. Furthermore, the judicial system has consistently failed to implement over 74% of leading judgments from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), particularly those concerning politically motivated arrests and the denial of fair trial rights.
The regime has systematically subjected independent oversight institutions and the legal profession to reforms that abolish or seriously weaken their independence or operational effectiveness. Legislative amendments have been utilized to expand executive control over disciplinary bodies and cement loyalists in power, effectively nullifying the legal profession’s ability to defend victims of political persecution. Most recently, in October 2025, the parliament adopted restrictive amendments to the Law “On Advocates and Advocate Activity,” which further eroded the independence of the Bar Association by expanding executive control over xx and allowing for indefinite terms for the Association’s regime-appointed leadership. These measures effectively nullify the legal profession’s ability to defend victims of political persecution. This legislative assault is a continuation of the regime’s strategy to dismantle independent oversight, dating back to the 2016 constitutional referendum that weakened parliamentary oversight over the executive branch by extending the presidential term and creating an unelected Vice Presidency.
Members of the judicial branch and legal profession who rule contrary to regime interests, or who are perceived as a threat, have faced systematic retaliation. State officials use disciplinary proceedings to silence legal defenders through harassment, suspension, and arbitrary administrative detention. Despite November 2024 and January 2025 ECtHR rulings condemning the past arbitrary disbarments of human rights lawyers like Afgan Mammadov and Yalchin Imanov, the regime continues to use disciplinary proceedings to silence legal defenders. In 2024 and 2025, lawyers defending political prisoners, such as Nemat Karimli and Elchin Sadiqov, faced renewed harassment, suspension, and arbitrary administrative detention.
