On August 21, 2024, Azerbaijan’s State Security Service, the country’s national intelligence office, arrested Bahruz Samadov, a PhD student in political science at Charles University of Prague and freelance Azerbaijani political analyst, in apparent retaliation for his criticisms of the government.
Samadov is an advocate for promoting dialogue and peace in the region, primarily between Azerbaijan and Armenia. He has also authored articles criticizing the 2020 and 2023 military offensives during which Azerbaijan regained control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which at the time was predominantly ethnically Armenian.
On the evening of August 21, Azerbaijani security forces entered Samadov’s grandmother’s house–where he was staying while on summer break from university–and arrested him. Police reportedly told Samadov’s grandmother that they were arresting him for suspected illegal drug activities, an accusation that authorities have used to silence critics of the government over the years.
On August 24, the Baku court updated Samadov’s charges to “high treason” and remanded him to four months of pretrial detention. The court alleged that Samadov had provided sensitive information to Armenia, an act that violated Article 274 of Azerbaijan’s Criminal Code, which prohibits actions that jeopardize “the sovereignty, territorial integrity, state security or defensibility of the Azerbaijan Republic.” Samadov faces a sentence of 12 to 20 years.
Samadov’s arrest comes less than a month after Azerbaijani authorities arrested Igbal Abilov, a professor and ethnic Talysh researcher, on charges of treason (see report). Human rights groups highlighted that Azerbaijan had cracked down on scholars, journalists, and activists critical of governmental policies ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, scheduled for November 2024 in Baku.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the arbitrary imprisonment of a student in apparent retaliation for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression, including extramural academic expression on a matter within his area of professional expertise—conduct that is expressly protected by international human rights instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Azerbaijan is a party. In addition to the harm to the immediate victim, such incidents have a chilling effect on academic freedom and undermine democratic society generally.
Sources:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/30/azerbaijan-escalating-crackdown-critics
https://cpj.org/2024/09/azerbaijani-columnist-bahruz-samadov-detained-on-treason-charges/
https://www.rferl.org/a/bahruz-samadov-pretrial-denetion-high-treason/33090248.html
https://www.azadliq.org/a/behruz-semedov/33088458.html
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur55/8554/2024/en/
https://www.azadliq.org/a/behruz-semedov/33088458.html
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2024/08/28/en-azerbaidjan-un-nouveau-tour-de-vis-contre-les-voix-dissidentes-avant-la-cop29_6297633_3210.html
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/08/29/azerbaijans-government-turns-on-its-critics-at-home
https://hetq.am/en/article/168892
https://oc-media.org/azerbaijani-researcher-bahruz-samdov-detained-in-baku/
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-condemns-azerbaijan-civil-society-crackdown-peace-activist-arrested/