Mammad Mammadzade
Pro-democracy activist and head of the Election Monitoring Alliance
About Mammad Mammadzade
Mammad Mammadzade, who is also known as Alpay, was born on 24 February 1990 in the Masalli district. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science from Baku State University (BSU) in 2011 and a master’s degree in the history of philosophy in 2016.
Since 2010, Mammadzade has been working to promote democratic values and monitor elections. He has worked as an international observer in many countries, including Norway, Ukraine, and Georgia.
In June 2022, he joined the board of the Public Association ‘Participation House,’ an organisation that supports civic education and youth initiatives. This demonstrated his dedication to the growth of civil society. In July 2023, he co-founded the Election Monitoring Alliance (or Alliance for Election Observation), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works to ensure that elections in Azerbaijan are free, fair, and transparent.
Mammadzade was persecuted before his arrest in 2025. In 2024, cyberattacks targeted his email account. In February 2025, he was called in for questioning about a different case involving a prominent human rights defender, Anar Mammadli.
Case description
Mammadzade was arrested in 2025 as part of a criminal investigation into non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that started in 2014 but was reopened in early 2025. This new investigation is specifically looking into CSOs that received funding from Western international funds, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the German Marshall Fund (GMF).1
On 14 March 2025, Mammadzade was taken into custody. Authorities seized his personal phone, his wife’s phone, and some jewellery when they searched his home on the day he was arrested.2
After that, he was charged with three crimes under the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan: Article 313 (official forgery), Article 308.2 (abuse of official powers resulting in grave consequences), and Article 193-1.3.2 (legalisation of property obtained by criminal means, committed on a large scale). The official accusation states that he and other activists obtained grant money illegally, disguised it as service contracts, and used it for activities “against state interests,” such as attempting to “undermine socio-political stability.” Mammadzade has always denied all of the charges, stating that the criminal case concerns only his lawful work on human rights and election observation.
On 14 March 2025, after his arrest, the Binagadi District Court of Baku ordered Mammadzade to be held in Pre-trial Detention Centre No. 1 for the first three months and 28 days. On 20 March 2025, the Baku Court of Appeal rejected his immediate appeal against this detention order.
The Binagadi District Court granted a motion on 9 July 2025 to keep him in detention for a further three months before his trial.
References
Resources about Mammad Mammadzade
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