The Two Faces of Azerbaijan: Torture & Repression
The Lookout Report has met and interviewed Azeri journalists, human rights activists, and dissidents to uncover the true story behind Azerbaijan as it prepares to host COP29.
Written by Felipe Oscar Bonilla Branner, in Istanbul, Türkiye
This is the first article in a three-part TLR series on Azerbaijan: “The Two Faces of Azerbaijan”. Over the next weeks we will also feature a piece on corruption and one on the country’s foreign policy. Those interviewed provide graphic accounts of sexual and psychological violence, reader discretion is advised.
If you were to mention Azerbaijan to most people today, chances are that the overwhelming response you’d get is total indifference. Perhaps a few know it from its appearances in Eurovision, but it is not common knowledge that, nestled in the Caucasus Mountains at the edge of the Caspian Sea, there is a powerful petrostate competing with the emirates and kings of the Persian Gulf.
Walking the streets of Baku, the country’s capital, you find yourself in a sort of strange, post-soviet, misunderstood Dubai. Huge five star hotels flank the road, odd futuristic buildings designed by the likes of Zaha Hadid line the streets. Even the country’s age-old practice of weaving magnificent Persian-style rugs has been immortalized in a futuristic contraption of a carpet-resembling museum. As onlookers — whether that be Eurovision fans, staunch followers of Formula 1, or brawly Danes looking to grab a beer ahead of their 2020 Euros quarterfinal — one would have the impression that they are witnessing the fruits of a success story, a hidden gem in the old chain of impoverished nations making up the former eastern bloc. It is on these streets that foreign dignitaries will stroll for the premier COP29 climate conference coming up in the fall. As the eyes of the world descend on Azerbaijan, one must ask: what’s the country really like behind these clouds of wealth and splendor?
The Lookout Report has over the last weeks met and interviewed Azeri journalists, human rights activists, writers, and diplomats living in exile. This article lifts the gilded curtain of illustrious international sporting events and conferences, to a brutal backstage, where actors don’t desire, but fear the spotlight. A backstage where the roars of Baku’s Formula 1 engines are replaced by the screams of hundreds of political prisoners; some held indefinitely in an unassuming government building, subjected to torture and denied a fair trial. This being but the tip of the iceberg.
Oasis of the Exiled
Our story begins on a staircase in Tbilisi, Georgia. The country has, time and time again, served as a safe haven and meeting point of exiles, who are either driven there by Georgia’s uniquely lax visa-regulation, or by sheer necessity, fleeing from political persecution or invasive draft laws. Georgia has once again taken up the mantle as safe haven of the wayward exiled, haboring many Azerbaijanis and Russians - just as Georgia itself is at an inflection point with regards to its own democratic future.
At this staircase I meet two young Azerbaijani university students. Politically active and worried about their country’s future, they are in Georgia to meet with other like-minded dissidents. Due to the nature of their visit to Georgia and their clandestine political activities, they have desired to remain anonymous in this article - and as we will soon discover - with good reason. Having visited Azerbaijan a year prior, and experienced their countrymen’s impressive talent at diverging any conversation entering the slightest precarious political terrain, I am pleasantly surprised to find these two young students are both candid and straight to the point.
The pair tells me how, if “you comment, tweet or post anything, even marginally framing the government in a negative light, you can expect security services taking you in by nightfall”. An efficacy, one of them had felt firsthand. In the wake of an unlucky post on Social Media, he was summoned by security forces to a local police station. He was only let of out of this ordeal due to the policeman “knowing his cousin was a good man”.
This encounter is typical of the everyday reality for Azerbaijanis, both in Azerbaijan and in exile, but is far from the most harrowing case.
The Aliyev Family Dynasty
The key to understanding the reality of contemporary Azerbaijan can be found in one family; a family without whom, it is impossible to imagine Azerbaijan in its modern state and form - The Aliyevs.
In the tumultuous years of the fall of the USSR, the nascent Republic of Azerbaijan struggled to define itself as a nation. The country had a brief go at fully-fledged multi-party democracy with the victory of Abulfaz Echilbey and his Popular Front (PFPA) in 1992. His government’s inability to resolve the ongoing Nagorno-Karabagh/Artsakh war in the country’s west and an impending coup at the doorstep of Baku, set the scene for former Azerbaijan Communist Party strongman and KGB-General, Heydar Aliyev to make his triumphant return into the halls of power of Azerbaijan. According to prominent scholar on Azerbaijan, Audrey Altstadt, Heydar Aliyev was initially welcomed as a stabilizing factor, a charismatic strongman who resolved the impending coup and brokered a ceasefire in Karabagh. Simultaneously, he made inroads abroad, signing lucrative oil and gas deals with international companies.
Aliyev’s domestic stablization efforts came at a great cost. Under the banner of the New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) - still ruling Azerbaijan to this day, Aliyev essentially wrapped an old system, its communist apparatus and his comrades, in new rhetoric brandishing iconic symbols drawn from the first Azerbaijan Peoples Republic 1918-1920 (who were crushed by the Soviet Red Army). Although kissing the flag of Azerbaijani Peoples Republic at a lavish presidential inauguration in 1994, Aliyev followed a policy of merely ‘symbolic’ democracy, where multi-party elections were held, but skewed in favour of the YAP so that Aliyev could tell western diplomats that he was gradually building democracy in Azerbaijan.
On his deathbed in Moscow in 2003, Heydar managed to secure for his son, Ilham Aliyev, the position as his successor. Disregarding the pretense of pseudo-democracy that his late father had upheld, Ilham Aliyev has won multiple elections by massive margins, with the OSCE describing how: “longstanding severe limitations on fundamental freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly both in law and in practice run contrary to standards for genuine democratic elections” and noting “serious irregularities in vote-counting”.
Like many autocrats before him, Aliyev has slowly moved the goalposts. Numerous constitutional amendments were proposed in July and adopted in September of 2016: the president’s term increased from five to seven years, the minimum age for a president was eliminated, and new vice-presidential posts were created, all to be appointed by the president. The first vice-president becoming his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva. The removal of a minimum age for a president, has led many analysts to speculate Aliyev is paving the way for his now 27-year old son, Heydar Aliyev (junior), to become his successor.
All this political maneuvering has been underscored by a brutality, noticably more cruel and indiscriminate than that of his father, especially targeting youth organisations, main opposition figures and journalists - something even his father steered clear off. Below are some of these stories, told by victims themselves.
The Bandotdel - Torture in Plain Sight
Azeri state-institutionalized torture is centered around an unassuming government building flanked by a youth academy for students of Cambridge English and situated just two blocks away from the Tofiq Bahramov Republic Football-Stadium. This building, a block painted in white and grey lines, has only one photo on Google Maps which features a proud security guard, seemingly posing for friends and family on his first day of work.
For those familiar with the Argentine “Dirty War” of the 1970’s, there are many parallels to be drawn here. As Argentine (and other Latinamerican) “desaparecidos”, were being held in one Argentine clandestine detention center, they were able to pinpoint their location by the loud cheers and commotion coming from the nearby stadium. This however, is where the the parallels end.
For the Baş Mütəşəkkil Cinayətkarlıqla Mübarizə İdarəsi or the “Bandotdel”, as it is popularily called, is a feared and infamous site of state brutality. In an interview with TLR, Arif Mammadov, former Azeri-top diplomat, calls the Ministry of the Interior’s Bandotdel “the torture machinery of the regime, where the most horrifying tortures are carried out”. More than sporadic police brutality, as is the case in many Azerbaijani prisons, this place is focal point of a web of state-institutionalized torture, that plays a pivotal role in Ilham Aliyev’s comprehensive tactique of smothering dissident voices.

This is the personal, unedited story of Saleh Rustamli, who was 55 at the time of his arrest on May 10th 2018, and subsequent incarceration in the Bandotdel:
“I am from the Gadabay region. I worked as the Executive Head of the Gadabay region from 1992-1993. At different times, I was the chairman of the Gadabay regional branch of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) and a member of its supreme council. When I was arrested, I was living in the Russian Federation.
While I was living in the Russian Federation, I provided financial assistance to political prisoners and their families who were imprisoned by the Azerbaijani government. Upon my return to Azerbaijan, I was detained by Bandotdel officers at a police checkpoint in the Shamkir district. I was initially taken to the Shamkir district police department and then, several hours later, transferred to the Bandotdel in Baku.
When I was detained, I was handcuffed from behind. In the car, there were two people in civilian clothes sitting on either side of me on the back seat. I noticed that the person sitting to my right had put something in my pocket when they reached into my jacket pocket and then pulled their hand out. When they removed the handcuffs at the police station, I immediately took off my jacket and threw it aside, saying, "You put something in my pocket, I won't touch it." The person who introduced himself as Colonel Kamil Mammadov and the head of the operational group took my jacket, removed a package from the pocket, and laughed, saying, "Whether you touch it or not, this package is yours. And it contains heroin." Then I was informed that I was being detained under Article 234.4.3, which pertains to the trafficking of narcotics on a large scale.
I was brought before the judge the next day. The lawyer hired by my relatives was not allowed to participate in the proceedings. Instead, a lawyer appointed by the state was brought to court.
The Bandotdel is located in the Narimanov district of Baku. We arrived there late at night. A large gate opened, and after the car entered, the gate closed. We went inside the administrative building and took the elevator up. I don't remember which floor it was, but we didn't go up very high, maybe the 3rd or 4th floor. It was probably Kamil Mammadov's office. They took my purse, belt, mobile phone, and money and drew up a protocol. Then they took me to a cell located in the basement of the building.
As far as I can remember, the building wasn't very tall. It was probably 4 or 5 stories high. The basement level was used for storage. Prisoners were kept in cells in the basement. The elevator went all the way down to the basement. There were also stairs. But for some reason, even if we only went up or down one floor, we used the elevator. Each cell had a metal door that opened from the outside, and there was a small food slot about 1.2 meters above the ground in the middle of the door. The elevator was located about 15-20 meters to the right of the large metal door to the cell block. On the opposite side of the elevator, in a space of about 150 square meters, there were expensive cars probably belonging to the administration.
I was subjected to continuous threats, insults, and blackmail at the Bandotdel, as well as two severe instances of torture. The first torture incident began after an interrogation in the Bandotdel chief's office. After the chief told those with him, "You haven't interrogated him properly, take him back and interrogate him again," they began to strike me on the back of my head, waist, and legs. Dragging me along, they took me to another office (if I'm not mistaken, it was on the same floor) and began to beat me even more severely. The second beating occurred a few days later after another interrogation in a small room near the cell where I was being held. One of the chief's deputies said, "You don't understand like a human being; I need to speak to you in a different language," after which a group of civilian-dressed, athletic-looking men filled the room, cursing and beating me with slaps and kicks. They also used an electroshock device to deliver electric current to various parts of my body.
After that, one of them spat in my face and said, "If you will not understand, next time I'll rape you with a baton.''
I want to highlight a particularly disturbing instance of psychological coercion that I experienced. A high-ranking official from the Bandotdel approached me with a document containing the names and addresses of my close relatives. They demanded that I verify the accuracy of this information. When I questioned the purpose of this inquiry, they dismissed my concerns with apparent indifference. This led me to believe that they were attempting to intimidate me by implying that my family members were under surveillance and that their freedom was at risk. This seemed very convincing to me because just two days after my arrest on May 10, 2018, my nephew, Vidadi Rustamli, was also arrested by Bandotdel. The incessant wailing of those being tortured in other cells shattered my sleep every night. The night I heard Vidadi's screams of pain, I was overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness and despair. Turning my face to the wall, I cried until morning.
During my time there, I was only able to communicate with one cellmate for 3-4 days. I had no contact with those detained in other cells. I spent 20 days in custody at Bandotdel. Prior to my transfer to the Investigative Isolation Ward, law enforcement arrested three members of the PFPA in connection with my case: Babak Hasanli, Agil Ali Maharramli, and Ruslan Nasirli.
It was only after we met in court that I discovered the extent of the torture my co-defendants had endured. Their treatment was far more severe and brutal than I had imagined. Vidadi required two major operations following his release and has since been battling a nervous disorder. Agil suffers from chronic joint pain and often needs a crutch to walk. Tragically, Babak passed away not long after his release due to complications from his health issues
The houses, land plots, and several other properties belonging to my brothers have been confiscated. The ban on their leaving the country is still in effect. The land plot belonging to my sister and niece has also been confiscated”.
Saleh Rustamli adds that the main goal for torturing him was obtaining a testimony against the chairman of PFPA Ali Karimli in order to arrest him. As Rustamli did not give any testimony, no arrest-warrant was issued at the time. As recently as September 12, 2024, however, Karimli was indicted on “slander-charges” which could lead to him facing more than 6 months in prison.
The U.S. State Department evidently knows about the Badontdel unit. On December 9, 2022, the U.S. issued sanctions against one of its officials, Kerim Heydar Alimardanov, for involvement gross human rights abuses in 2015 and 2016.
London School of Economics Professor Arrested
According to the Ministry of The Interior of Azerbaijan, the purpose of the Bandotdel is to combat organised crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting. Audrey Altstadt says to TLR that: “they use these charges of criminal offences so they can tell western countries they don’t have any political prisoners”.
These charges have amongst others been used in 2023 against the opposition leader Prof. Gubad Ibadoghlu, who was accused of having 40,000$ in Cash lying around his offices. Ironically, the London School of Economics Professor was briefly visiting family in Azerbaijan, not having been to his offices in over ten years. As top-diplomat Arif Mammadov puts it to TLR; “it would have been more probable if they had planted drugs on his body”. Ibadoghlu and his wife were violently arrested by security forces dressed in civilian clothing, with his wife sustaining various physical abuses. Ibadoghlu was then allegedly taken to the Bandotdel. Ibadoghlu is still in an indefinite state of pre-trial detention, where he is being denied vital treatment for his chronic illnesses. His children, Ibad Bayramov, Emin Bayramli, and Zhala Bayramova, recently pled to UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, in The Telegraph to help free their father.
According to the Guardian, in 2023, the Red Cross was denied visit to see Ibadoghlu. The European parliament called for immediate access to medical treatment and medication and voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution demanding Ibadoghlu’s release. 25 British campaign groups and British lawmakers, including the peer Alf Dubs and eight MPs, have called for Ibadoghlu’s unconditional release from indefinite pre-trial detention.
TLR has established a direct link to Prof. Ibadoghlu. In the following he tells his own story:
“On July, 23, 2023, I was arrested on fabricated charges while on a short visit to Baku to tend to my ailing mother. On April 22, 2024, I was moved to house arrest due to international pressure. I was released from prison, but I am not free. I was transferred from one prison house to another, from small to large.
It has been 14 months since my unjust detention on July 23, 2023. For the past nine months, I have been under the strict supervision of the penitentiary service, and now I am under constant surveillance by the police and special services. State special services confiscated my diary in the detention center.
Currently, I am under constant surveillance, with cameras tracking my every move, my phone conversations being recorded, and unauthorized individuals monitoring my activities. Police cars and cameras are stationed around my house, and I am denied access to any communication equipment. This intrusive surveillance is a clear violation of my privacy and a stark reminder of the unjust restrictions I am under.
Despite being under heart-wrenching restrictions in house arrest, I am required to report to the police twice a week instead of going to University.
Despite the lack of evidence, my pre-trial detention was extended four times (the last time from May 20 to August 20). My pre-trial investigation was suspended indefinitely on July 29, 2024. This means that I can't travel abroad, and I am still at risk of being imprisoned again. The charges against me, under articles 204.3.1 of the Criminal Code (preparation and sale of counterfeit money by an organized group) and 167-3.1 (religious-extremist activity), are severe and could lead to a 17-year jail sentence. These charges, which I vehemently deny, have not been dropped despite the lack of evidence.
According to James Bengtson, a US-based board-certified cardiologist with 36 years of clinical experience, I have a significant aortic aneurysm, which appears to have grown rapidly. This poses an imminent danger to my life. It requires prompt evaluation by a cardiac surgeon with experience treating this condition.”
Terter Case - Cleansing of “Unpatriotic” Elements in The Army
Probably the most horrifying case of human rights violations in Azerbaijan is that of the little known Terter Case. In an interview with humans rights activist and writer Abid Gafarov, TLR had the opportunity to ask Gafarov about his investigations into the case, that finally led to his own incarceration and subsequent forced exile from Azerbaijan.
In the aftermath of renewed hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in May 2017, several Azerbaijani law enforcement bodies released a statement claiming that “a group of military officers and civilians of weak-will betrayed the nation, the homeland and the state, lost the spirit of citizenship and devotion to the motherland and engaged in secret cooperation with enemy intelligence by repeatedly giving them information of military secrecy for the sake of their financial interests”. In the same statement it was also alleged that these military personnel were involved in the planning of a terror attack in public spaces in Baku.
Hundreds of Azerbaijani soldiers were rounded up and charged with treason over a period of two to three months in the western city of Terter, where many of the soldiers were serving. “Small rooms filled with the sound of crying and screaming,” said one torture survivor, interviewed for a 2021 documentary on BBC Azerbaijani. The same soldier described the scenes he remembered: “Blood everywhere. Like a butcher shop. You would slip on blood. They pointed to a corpse on the floor – even in a car accident you don’t end up in that bad shape – and asked me to choose: admit to being a spy, give a name, or wait for the fate of the man on the floor.”
In an interview with local media, another former soldier who was accused of espionage reported that he was forced to urinate on his father, an officer at the time. Yet another detained former officer said he had seen soldiers forced to have sex with one another.
In the interview with TLR, Mr. Gafarov accounts for his own interviews with more than 100 victims in the region, that soldiers experienced everything from submersion in barrels with water subsequently supplied with electricity, rape with metal rods, rape with electrified metal rods, torture to the genitals, nails into gums with subsequent electricity, removal of finger nails, and relatives having to go through sexual abuse to even speak to imprisoned loved ones.
Mr. Gafarov calls what happened in Terter as state-sponsored torture, since several of the victims, with whom he conducted interviews, stated how their torturors repeatedly said: “President Aliyev has allowed us to torture you and also kill you if necessary”.
It took many years for Azerbaijani law enforcement to open up around the accusations surrounding the Terter Case. It was only as recently as 2019 when a group of 12 army officers were arrested on torture charges: all were convicted and sentenced to terms between three-and-a-half to ten years in prison.
And it has only been later in November of 2021, that Azerbaijan’s Chief Military Prosecutor, Khanlar Valiyev, has admitted that detainees - more than a 100, he said - had been subjected to various forms of physical violence in the initial stages of investigation in the Terter case, and that one person had died as a result. However, according to Abid Gafarov and other private investigators, more than 12 people directly died as a result of the torture and more than 400 were subjected to physical torture - with many hundreds more having suffered some degree of psychological torture.
Gafarov fought for the rights of the Terter soldiers, but increasingly started to fear for his own safety. While the walls were closing in around him he wrote the book “Andalunya”, a fictional account, in style of Kafka, of the psychological implications of never knowing when that fateful day arrives where security services arrives on one’s front door. He was subsequently arrested in 2021, spent one year in prison, lost his job at BP as a result, and fled into exile.
COP29-Related Activism at Stake?
According to Human Rights Watch, with the COP29 coming up in the fall, the crackdown on critics is escalating. Whether this is an attempt on part of Baku to stifle or dissuade dissident voices during the COP remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the COP, which actually was awarded to Azerbaijan as a result of a prisoner-exchange with Armenia, will bring tens of thousands of foreign activists and dignitaries to the streets of Baku. As the world hammers out the roadmap for achieving a just and sustainable world for future generations, global leaders should take a moment to reflect on the fact that only five blocks away from the Heydar Aliyev Center, where the welcome ceremony will most likely take place, lies the Bandotdel. Almost, but not quite, close enough to hear the muffled screams of its basements.
According to this report, as of 14 June 2024, there are 303 political prisoners being held in Azerbaijan, amongst which 20 are journalists.