Azerbaijan: Academics Sentenced On Spurious Charges Of Treason

Bahruz Samadov, a PhD candidate at Charles University in Prague, has long been a vocal critic of human rights violations in Azerbaijan and an advocate for peace in the South Caucasus. Since 2020, after he co-signed the “Anti-war Statement of Azerbaijani Leftist Youth,” he has been publicly vilified by the Azerbaijani state media, experts and officials as a “traitor” for his anti-war views and calls for peace. He was arrested on 21 August 2024 while visiting Baku from Prague,4 and was charged with “high treason” under Article 274 of the Criminal Code. His family and the lawyer of his choice were unable to contact him for two days following his arrest. He was refused bail, and his defence’s petition to move him to house arrest and allow him to contact his family during his pretrial detention was denied. 

Bahruz Samadov has denied all charges, stating there is no evidence of any collaboration with the Armenian intelligence services. His writings, published in respected regional and international outlets including OC Media, Eurasianet, and openDemocracy, were focused on peaceful solutions to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and on human rights, and so were his posts on social media. The charges against Bahruz Samadov stem from his peaceful activism, advocacy for dialogue and peace with neighbouring Armenia, and criticism of the expulsion of the ethnic Armenian population from the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan brought under its control by military force between 2020 and 2022. 

Reportedly the main evidence presented in the court against Igbal Abilov consisted of exchanges about minority rights issues with a fellow academic from Armenia, which the prosecution argued amounted to espionage and treason. Igbal Abilov has consistently denied all charges, and his colleagues told Amnesty International that the exchange was part of a scholarly collaboration focused on linguistic and ethnographic studies, with no indication that any classified or sensitive information was ever shared. Igbal Abilov’s trial was held behind closed doors – excluding independent observers, journalists, and human rights monitors – raising serious concerns about the impartiality of the proceedings. 

Azerbaijani officials and state media portrayed Abilov as a traitor and guilty of treason, long before the trial concluded, violating his right to be presumed innocent. Similarly to the case of Bahruz Samadov, no credible evidence was ever publicly presented – or otherwise known of – to justify the allegations of high treason and the subsequent severe sentence.

The Azerbaijani authorities have long abused the criminal justice system to silence any critical opinion or research.