Azerbaijan Sentences Exiled Critics to Jail

The Baku Grave Crimes Court recently finished the cases against some Azerbaijani journalists and activists who live outside the country. On January 14, Judge Nigar Imanova said that Sevinc Osmanqizi (Mirzayeva), Abid Gafarov, and Beydulla Manafov would each get eight years in prison. They were not in court for the decision.

What They're Saying

The case is about what they did on YouTube channels called Osmanqizi TV and AzerFreedom TV. The government said that between 2019 and 2024, they used these channels to try to make people go against the government.

The court said that the three people were working together to ask people to start riots, use violence, and take over the government. They were charged with Articles 220.2 (starting riots) and 281.2 (speaking out against the state) of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code.

More Legal Trouble

This isn't the first time this has happened. On December 23, the same court gave Ganimat Zahid, who used to run the Azadliq newspaper and now lives in another country, seven years in prison for similar things. The Prosecutor General's Office also called in historian Altay Goyushov and political analyst Arastun Oruclu, who both live abroad, and they might also face legal problems.

The People Charged Speak Out

The people charged say they didn't do anything wrong and that the government is just trying to stop them from speaking freely. Sevinc Osmanqizi, who now lives in the United States, said that the charges are because the government is afraid of words and compared it to times in the past when people were kept down.

Arastun Oruclu said that he never asked anyone to start a fight and that he has always been against that kind of thing. Many of the people charged said that the sentences are meant to scare people who live outside the country and to stop them from reporting what's really going on.

International Worries

Human rights groups are worried about what's happening. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the Azerbaijani government should stop trying to keep critics quiet, both in Azerbaijan and in other countries. Giorgi Gogia from HRW said that these cases show that the government is using the courts to stop people disagreement.

Azerbaijani officials said that the courts are independent and that the decisions are based on real security problems. but more and more people who live in other countries are getting long prison sentences, like bloggers Tural Sadigli and Gurban Mammadov, which shows that the government and its critics who live abroad are getting further apart.

Even though these journalists and activists are not in Azerbaijan, the sentences show that there are risks for people who challenge the government from other countries.