BAHRUZ SAMADOV
Peace activist and political scientist; PhD candidate at Charles University in Prague; imprisoned under the bogus charges.
About Bahruz Samadov
Bahruz Valeh oghlu Samadov is a peace activist, political scientist, and researcher from Azerbaijan. He was born on 30 April 1995, in Baku, Azerbaijan. He went to college at the Baku branch of Moscow State University, where he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in philology. He graduated with honors in 2018. After that, he got a Master’s degree in international relations from Central European University in Hungary (2018–2019).
He is an expert in political science research, using post-structuralist and psychoanalytical theories to study hegemony, political discourses, identity, political stability, and populism.
At the time of his arrest in 2024, he was a PhD student in the political science department at Charles University in Prague. Samadov is known for his harsh criticism of the Azerbaijani government, which he has called authoritarian, and for always calling for peace in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
His work, which often criticized militarism and war crimes, was published on international sites like OC Media, Eurasianet, openDemocracy, and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). Pro-government media called him a “traitor” and “pro-Armenian.”
In 2013, Samadov joined the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party. This was the start of his activism. He was a member of the NİDA Civic Movement from 2013 to 2020 and served on its Board of Directors from 2017 to 2018.
On 1 November 2015, during parliamentary elections, he wrote the names of political prisoners and the slogan “Freedom for political prisoners!” to protests the repressive policies in the country.
He has gone to protests and rallies against the government many times. Before his arrest in 2024, Samadov had already been persecuted. For example, in September 2020, he was one of a group of peaceful activists who were briefly detained in Baku for protesting the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pro-government media often framed him for his articles about peace, like one in which he criticized the display of dead Armenian soldiers’ helmets in Baku’s Military Trophy Park, saying it was dehumanizing.
Samadov is the one of those political prisoners, who was put behind bars for speaking out for peace. Reportedly, it’s very emotionally difficult for him, as a reseracher, to be alone in prison and be held in such conditions.
Case description
On 21 August 2024, Bahruz Samadov was arrested in Baku while he was visiting home from his PhD studies in Prague. Security officers, who said they worked for the State Security Service (SSS), broke into his grandmother’s house, where he was staying, and took him into custody. Reportedly, before his arrest, he was subjected to surveillance via a spyware installed on his phone.
At first, they told his grandmother that the suspicion was about illegal drug use, which some people say is a way for the government to silence its critics. When he was first arrested, police searched his house and seized his electronic devices, including his phone and computer. For two days he was held incommunicado, without being able to talk to anyone.
On August 23, 2024. Aftre confriming his arrest officially, azerbaijani investigative authorities charged him to high treason under Criminal Code Article 274. The accusations were based on claims that he allegedly had given Armenia information (that was not specified) or that he was writing articles “with the order of Armenians” based on his communication with Armenian researchers and peace activists.
The Sabail District Court remanded him to four months pre-trial detention. His pre-trial detention was prolonged several times in the following months, and the defence motions on transefering him under the house arrest, denied by the court.
Samadov always denied the charges, saying they were made up and calling himself a “prisoner of peace.” He also said that while he was in the custody of the Special Security Services, he was the victim of both physical and mental abuse.
On 20 June 2025, the prosecution motioned for a 16-year prison sentence for Samadov. Samadov reportedly tried suicide soon after this request and was moved to the hospital wing of the Baku Pretrial Detention Center. To protest his arbitrary detention, he went on a a nine-day hunger strike.
The Baku Grave Crimes Court held the trial behind closed doors, which violated his right to a fair trial. Bahruz Samadov was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence on June 23, 2025. The verdict was read in a private hearing, and only his grandmother, friends, and a small group of activists were allowed to be there.
Resources about Bahruz Samadov
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