English om Azerbajdzjan
Azerbaijani whistleblower detained: “The police forged evidence”
After Azerbaijani whistleblower Ilhamiz Guliyev testified about how the police plant evidence against oppositionists, he was detained. This comes at the same time as relations between Azerbaijan and the EU are shaken by diplomatic bickering.
Av Rasmus Canbäck 23 december, 2023
The Azerbaijani whistle-blower Ilhamiz Guliyev was detained on December 4 and faces up to twelve years in prison. It was the second detention of him during the fall.
The first detention was in October after he had previously given an anonymous interview to the independent newspaper AbzasMedia in the late September. Between 2013 and 2019, he worked as an assistant investigator for the Azerbaijani police. During his time there, Ilhamiz Gulijev claims to have witnessed how the police systematically planted fake evidence to target activists.
In the interview for AbzasMedia, he tells about how the police, for example, used confiscated drugs that they had not registered as seized to frame opposition activists.
”Sometimes the drugs are confiscated from criminals and are not documented properly in the police records, which later used as evidence against non-criminals. Particularly, against those with strong political ID.”
Before he became a police officer, he was active in the left-wing opposition movement N!da Civic Movement, but also a member of the opposition party ”Popular Front”. It is worth noting that his activism took place during a period when the Azerbaijani civil society was undergoing a massive crackdown..
Swedish singer Loreen, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in 2012, made a big deal of both meeting democracy activists and criticizing the Azerbaijani regime for the persecution. This led to criticism from the Azerbaijani government against her.
Formally, the position that Ilhamiz Guliyev had with the Azerbaijani police does not exist. This means that Azerbaijani authorities deny that he was employed by them.
On October 5, just a week after AbzasMedia published the interview with him, he was called to the police. There, the police are said to have confiscated his phone.
After 30 days he was released, but again detained on December 4 shortly after the detention of the editorial staff of AbzasMedia.
The editorial staff of the independent newspaper AbzasMedia were detained by the police in November. The director of the newspaper Ulvi Hasanli, the editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, and the assistant Mahammad Kekalov were arrested for a few days on charges of money laundering.
Opposition critics believe that the police planted large sums of cash in the office to frame them, and that it is ultimately about a diplomatic crisis between Azerbaijan and the United States.
AbzasMedia received some of its funding from USAID. But after the US Congress suspended all military cooperation with Azerbaijan, following the de facto ethnic cleansing of Armenians that Azerbaijan carried out in September, the persecution of civil society actors who had to do with USAID began.
When the police arrrested Ilhamiz Guliyev, they used information from his phone in order to blackmail him. The arrest this time included allegations of a criminal case, and hence he is facing up to twelve years in prison.
Aygul Jafarova, Ilhamiz Guliyev’s partner who currently stays abroad, told Blankspot that she last heard from him on December 20.
“I last heard from him on Wednesday. He could call me from prison,” she said, continuing. I am horrified at the thought that he could be jailed for twelve years. He is not a criminal. He has just spoken what is right.”
She said he was arrested in front of her.
“He was arrested in front of my eyes and I could not do anything. It is wrong to even call it an arrest – it was a kidnapping. The police came in plainclothes and dragged him into a car and drove away. I didn’t know where they took him and had to look between several police stations close to where we live.”
What do you think the international community can do?
“Azerbaijan is an oil-rich country and the government has strong trade relations with both other states, companies and individuals. The international community must not ignore the human rights violations that are taking place against Azerbaijanis and trade relations with the country must not be prioritized over our rights,” Aygul Jafarova said.
Arrests of journalists and opposition activists in the autumn have taken place in the shadow of the military offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh, but also – it seems – in advance of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev calling for an early election on February 7.
Several leading opposition voices have been arrested in what appears to be an attempt to stifle alternatives to the incumbent president. In late July, researcher and social debater Gubad Ibadoglu was arrested and in December, the outspoken critic Tofig Yagublu, who is a member of the Musavat Party, was also arrested.
Gubad Ibadoglu has long campaigned for the international community to impose sanctions on the country, which he also expressed in a last will before he was imprisoned.
The arrests prompted criticism from the European Commission’s foreign service (EEAS) on December 21. In a press release, EEAS writes that arrests of journalists, activists and oppositionists damage relations between the EU and Azerbaijan.
According to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the European Commission agreed with the 27 member states in November not to rule out sanctions as a tool against Azerbaijan.Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry responded to EEAS to not interfere in the country’s internal affairs, and that the EU is guilty of worsening relations by doing so.
Top picture: A screenshot from the anonymous interview in AbzasMedia
