One Year in Detention:
Call for the Immediate and Unconditional Release of Anar Mammadli
29 April 2025 marks one year since human rights defender Anar Mammadli’s arrest in Azerbaijan.
Human rights defender Anar Mammadli was arrested on 29 April 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. On 8 April 2025, shortly before the close of the investigation, the initial charges brought against him (smuggling and money laundering) were escalated (engaged in unregistered and illegal entrepreneurial activities, tax evasion, and forgery of documents). He remains in pre-trial detention awaiting trial.
Anar Mammadli is one of Azerbaijan’s most prominent voices for democratic governance and electoral integrity. He leads the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), the country’s only independent election observation organisation. He co-founded the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE). In recognition of his work, he received the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize from the Council of Europe.
His case is emblematic of the broader repression on civil society in Azerbaijan. Since January 2023, the number of political prisoners has increased by more than 250%, including the recent arrest of human rights defender Bashir Suleymanli, a long-time colleague and co-founder of EMDS.
We therefore call for the immediate and unconditional release, as well as full rehabilitation, of Anar Mammadli, Bashir Suleymanli, and all other human rights defenders, journalists, political activists, and academics currently unjustly detained in Azerbaijan.
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