Ali Karimli, the veteran leader of Azerbaijan’s pro-democracy opposition party, has spent nearly half a year in a Baku jail cell on contested treason charges. From prison, he urges Western trading partners to act with “courage” and press the regime on its human rights record, warning that political opposition may disappear altogether.
Karimli, 61, has long accused the regime of politically motivated detentions, torturing his staff, and bombing his party headquarters. He says his latest arrest marks a new peak in a spiralling crackdown on dissent. “The repressive campaign already underway ... has now reached its peak with my arrest,” he told The Independent. “It signals that a new era has begun — one in which the authorities intend to eliminate organised political opposition in Azerbaijan permanently.”
Rights groups identify at least 340 political prisoners, including journalists and activists. Concerns grew in December when a 22-year-old regime critic died by apparent suicide in prison, with no investigation published. Karimli warns that Baku’s trade partners are sacrificing long-term stability by “looking the other way,” and calls on the UK, Azerbaijan’s largest foreign investor, to use its leverage.
Detained on 29 November after a raid on his home, Karimli faces charges of conspiring to overthrow the government in a Russian-backed coup. He was held incommunicado for two days before pre-trial detention. His trial, initially set for February, has been postponed to June. Karimli insists the charges are bogus, the “precise inversion of my documented, published position” advocating deeper Western engagement and resistance to Russian pressure.
He believes the regime calculates that the international community is “too distracted” by issues like the war in Ukraine to intervene, and that European governments, hungry for alternative energy after turning away from Russian gas, will quietly set aside democratic values. Azerbaijan’s relationship with Russia has shifted following the 2024 downing of an Azerbaijani passenger plane, while Europe’s energy needs have deepened engagement with the oil- and gas-rich country.
Karimli argues that closer integration with “Euro-Atlantic institutions” — democracy, free elections, free press, rule of law, and a free economy — is both achievable and necessary for progress. He says there remains public appetite for reform, despite the threat of persecution.
The chairman of the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party has faced years of resistance: a travel ban in 2005, a 2014 explosion at party headquarters, and allegations that his bodyguard was tortured in 2020. Amnesty International describes the charges against him as “dubious” and calls for his release unless evidence is provided. Freedom House scores Azerbaijan 6/100 for Global Freedom, warning that corruption remains rampant and the political opposition “has been weakened by years of persecution.”
“By arresting opposition leaders, closing independent media, and dismantling civil society, the authorities remove every institutional route through which dissatisfaction could become political action,” Karimli said. “They are not addressing the underlying conditions. They are preventing those conditions from producing consequences — for now.”
From London, Karimli’s daughter, Sezan, said the family has a “very narrow window” to act. “Aliyev is watching very closely what the international reactions are, and once the show trial begins, it’s very hard for me to think how he could back down at that point,” she said. British officials raised Karimli’s case with senior Azerbaijani government members on 4 December, urging due legal process and medical access. A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We continue to monitor this case closely, alongside the wider human rights situation in Azerbaijan, and raise concerns about the protection of freedoms directly with the Azerbaijani Government.”
