Responding to today’s decision by an Azerbaijani court to remand in custody prominent opposition leader Ali Karimli, following a raid on his home and his arrest by the State Security Service, Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:

“Ali Karimli’s detention is the latest outrage in the ongoing consolidation of authoritarian practices in Azerbaijan. There appears to be no limits to the government’s campaign to crush all political opposition and suppress all dissent in the country.

 “While few are prepared to openly challenge the authorities, the decision to arrest an opposition leader, hold him incommunicado and press dubious charges of ‘attempted seizure of power’ against him, sends a chilling warning to anyone who may have doubts as to how far the Azerbaijani government is prepared to go.

 “The authorities must release Ali Karimli unless they can demonstrate reasonable evidence of an alleged criminal offence. All they have demonstrated so far, by snatching and holding him incommunicado, and thus denying him his right to a fair trial, is their determination to take this wave of politically motivated arrests targeting opposition figures, academics, journalists and activists, even further.”

Journalists, academics and politicians rounded up

On 1 December, the Sabayil District Court in Baku remanded Ali Karimli, chairman of the opposition Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (APFP) in pre-trial detention for two months and 15 days, under Article 278.1 of the Criminal Code (“actions aimed at the violent seizure of power” and “violent change of the constitutional order”). Authorities have connected him to a criminal investigation against Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former head of the presidential administration, who was charged in October with attempted “seizure of power,” “high treason” and the “legalisation of property obtained by criminal means.”

Ali Karimli was detained on 29 November after security agents raided his home in Baku after which he was kept incommunicado for two days. Several other APFP members were also detained following searches, including Presidium member Mammad Ibrahim who has been held incommunicado since.

These arrests come amid an intensified crackdown on dissent in Azerbaijan, where journalists, academics and opposition figures increasingly face harassment, arbitrary detention and politically motivated prosecutions.