Human Rights Watch
16 Jun 2026, 15:01 GMT+10
A Baku court's June 12 decision to convict prominent human rights defender Rufat Safarov on bogus criminal charges and sentence him to eight years in prison is the latest blow to Azerbaijan's already severely restricted civic space.
Safarov, executive director of the human rights organization Defense Line (Mdafi Xtti), was convicted by the Baku Court of Grave Crimes on charges of fraud, hooliganism, and intentional infliction of bodily harm. His lawyers said they would appeal.
Authorities arrested Safarov on December 3, 2024, the day he visited the US Embassy in Baku to collect a visa to travel to Washington, DC, where he was due to receive the US Secretary of State's 2024 Human Rights Defender Award. A court ordered him held in pretrial detention, which was extended several times.
The prosecution alleged that Safarov had been given 60,000 Azerbaijani manat, approximately US$ 36,000, to purchase land, which he then embezzled. Safarov denies he was given any money or even knew his accuser and prosecutors were unable to produce a contract, receipt, or other documentary evidence substantiating the allegation. The bodily harm charge also appeared fabricated: a doctor's report was in the case file, but the alleged victim reportedly acknowledged that he had not undergone a medical examination, and a witness did not confirm the prosecution's version of the incident.
Safarov heads Defense Line, a civil society organization that documents politically motivated arrests and prosecutions, government corruption, and allegations of torture. He is one of Azerbaijan's few remaining human rights defenders. In 2015, after publicly raising concerns about abuses and corruption in the Prosecutor General's Office, where he was working at the time, Safarov was fired, arrested, and later served three years of a nine-year prison sentence on politically motivated charges before being pardoned in 2019.
The timing of Safarov's arrest, immediately before he was to receive a major international human rights award, strongly suggests that the case is retaliation for his human rights work. His prosecution fits a broader pattern in Azerbaijan of using fabricated or politically motivated criminal charges to silence journalists, activists, opposition figures, and human rights defenders.
Azerbaijani authorities should immediately and unconditionally release Safarov, quash his conviction, and drop all politically motivated charges against him. Azerbaijan's international partners should press the government to end its crackdown on civil society and free all those detained for exercising their rights.
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