Amnesty Urges Aliyev to Free Samadov and Prevent Torture Risk

The international human rights organization Amnesty International appealed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and demanded the release of Bahruz Samadov, an author for OC Media, from detention. The organization expressed concern that Samadov may be at risk of torture.

Samadov, 31, was arrested in 2024. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of treason. He does not admit the charges. For several years before his arrest, he wrote for OC Media. According to Amnesty, he is "arbitrarily detained."

In a letter to Aliyev, it says: "I call on you and your government to immediately and unconditionally release Bahruz Samadov. Pending his release, stop placing him in solitary confinement, ensure that he receives necessary medical care without delay, and that he is kept in safe and humane conditions".

The organization links Samadov's detention to his activities as "an open advocate of peace in the South Caucasus." According to Amnesty, the charges against him are "based solely on his peaceful activism, his support for dialogue with Armenia and his criticism of the expulsion of the ethnic Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh." His articles were published in OC Media, EurasiaNet and OpenDemocracy and addressed the peaceful resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and the protection of human rights in Azerbaijan. Amnesty says the criminal prosecution is politically motivated and that reliable evidence of a crime has never been publicly presented.

At the court's most recent hearing, after his appeal motions were rejected, Samadov injured his hand with a sharp object. His lawyer, Ziveyda Sadigova, confirmed this to OC Media. Samadov addressed the court: "When words are no longer enough, you have to speak with blood".

According to reports, during his detention Samadov was "kept locked in a dark, narrow cell, where he had no possibility to go out into the prison yard." For more than a month he was denied medication prescribed by a doctor and was refused ophthalmological care, although his eyesight had deteriorated significantly. His doctor linked the deterioration to the conditions of his detention. The organization notes that Samadov attempted suicide twice while in detention, and for two months he was held in solitary confinement as a punitive measure, and he was deliberately kept in isolation during court hearings as well.

In Amnesty's conclusion, "together with the failure to provide necessary medical care, these circumstances may amount to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The organization calls on Aliyev to end "baseless criminal prosecution" and to conduct an effective investigation into the treatment of Samadov, and also demands that Azerbaijan "stop criminalizing the peaceful expression of dissenting opinion."

On October 30, Samadov's friend Amrah Tamazov said that in early October Bahruz was personally visited by a representative of Azerbaijan's governmental human rights organization. According to him, the representative only superficially checked his health condition, took a photo and left. Tamazov said the purpose of the visit and the photo was only so that they could later say: "Don't worry, we see him, he is alive, everything is fine".