HRW says Azerbaijan should immediately end relentless crackdown on independent voices at home and abroad

Azerbaijani authorities are escalating their campaign against independent and critical voices abroad, issuing arrest warrants and summonses for exiled journalists, activists, and analysts on what appear to be politically motivated charges. The moves fit a long-running pattern of efforts  to crush dissent and restrict freedom of expression both inside Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. These cases reflect the authorities’ longstanding practice of abusing the criminal justice system to silence critics, Human Rights Watch writes.

Since November 2023, Azerbaijani authorities have arrested journalists, political activists, rights defenders, and scholars on spurious financial and other criminal charges, including illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion, and document forgery.

The latest wave of targeting Azerbaijanis abroad follows multiple criminal investigations in March 2025 against several exiled bloggers, accusing them of offenses including fraud, terrorism, inciting riots, disobeying official orders, and attempting a coup. Since then, the courts have issued numerous arrest warrants and handed down convictions in absentia. Most recently, in September, a court sentenced a France-based blogger, Mahammad Mirzali, in absentia to six and a half years in prison on several charges, including inciting mass unrest.

Azerbaijani authorities should immediately drop all politically motivated charges, end their relentless crackdown on independent voices at home and abroad, and uphold their international obligations to respect free expression and association.