The investigative group have sought to criminalise rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution and by international conventions to which Azerbaijan is a party.
In his remarks, Mammadli, co-founder of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS) reminded the Court that “This is the second time in the past eleven years that I have been unlawfully brought before this court on a politically motivated criminal charge.”
Mammadli has spent decades defending human rights and documenting Azerbaijan’s elections, often at great personal cost. The criminal prosecution initiated against him in 2013was assessed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in its judgment Mammadli v. Azerbaijan of 19 April 2018 as politically orchestrated and an abuse of law.
If the ECtHR already concluded that there had been ‘no reasonable suspicion’ in relation to the same set of facts, how does the current process differ from the previous one?
The fact that the indictment still refers to his previous conviction, Mammadli argues, is not only contrary to domestic law but also to Azerbaijan’s international obligations and to the execution of ECtHR judgments.
He used his statement to also bring attention to the situation for other political prisoners and the wider repression in the country: “Azerbaijan is currently enduring one of the most severe periods of political repression in its history. A clear example of this is the fact that more than 300 of our fellow citizens are presently behind prison walls as political prisoners.”
The indictment against him, he argued, is not just unlawful but also absurd. “The charge against me was set out in three sentences: the first consisting of 224 words, the second stretching over more than a page with 554 words, and the third extending across 12 pages with approximately 6,370 words,” he told the court. “Such a text demonstrates not merely disrespect for our native language, but also ignorance of the achievements that legal language worldwide has attained over the past two centuries.”
Mammadli draws parallels with authoritarian practices of the past, as well as practices inspired from the authoritarian playbooks of post-Soviet neighbours Belarus and Russia. “One still sees the disfigured and impoverished legacy of the repressive political mentality of the NKVD of the 1930s and the KGB officers of the stagnation era.”
Since 2013, the Azerbaijani authorities have likewise adopted this practice—criminalizing the work of civil society and human rights defenders in the same way as Russia and Belarus. Azerbaijan continues to replicate the Kremlin’s repressive model for suffocating civil society.
Mammadli also drew parallels between the State’s justifications for his case and the persecution of Soviet-era poet Joseph Brodsky. “The censure of EMDS for carrying out its activities without registration… inevitably evokes the Soviet-era prosecution of the poet and translator Joseph Brodsky, who was absurdly convicted of ‘parasitism,’” Mammadli said. “And now I too face an accusation of the same nature: since EMDS has not been granted registration, why do I present myself as its chair, as a representative of civil society, and as a human rights defender?!”
For Mammadli, his case is part of the wider human rights crisis spreading throughout the region: “For authoritarian regimes in the post-Soviet space, including Azerbaijan, the Kremlin serves as the political compass for suppressing freedoms and enforcing political repression.”
The trial of Anar Mammadli continues.
About Emin Abbasov
Emin Abbasov is Chair of the Independent Lawyers Network (ILN), a member of Human Rights House Azerbaijan. ILN is an Azerbaijan-based non-profit and non-governmental organisation established in 2020 by human rights lawyers to support and advance the rights and capacity of independent lawyers in the country.
About Anar Mammadli
Anar Mammadli is a prominent Azerbaijani human rights defender and political prisoner. Mammadli is the founder of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), a member organisation of Human Rights House Azerbaijan.
Mammadli has worked for decades in monitoring elections and advocating for transparency. In 2008, he established EMDS five months before the presidential elections of that year.
Mammadli’s arrest in April 2024 marks the second time that he has been detained for his legitimate human rights work. He was previously imprisoned for his election-related work following the 2013 presidential elections in Azerbaijan.
