“GEGHARD”
SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL
FOUNDATION
2025
2025
The death of 17-year-old Elgun Ibrahimov has sparked widespread public outcry in Azerbaijani society. According to reports, the young man had recorded a video showing police officers transporting drugs. Opposition blogger Manaf Jalizade claims that the police noticed the teenager, chased him, beat him, and gouged out his eyes. In an attempt to cover up the crime, the police threw 17-year-old Elgun from the balcony of a dormitory's fifth floor, presenting the incident as a suicide.
The boy’s relatives deny the suicide version, insisting that he had been beaten and had a fractured skull. Weeks after the incident, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Security Service issued a joint statement dismissing the possibility of murder. According to their claims, no signs of violence were found on Ibrahimov’s body, and the young man died in the hospital, allegedly from injuries sustained after falling from a height.
Before the official statement was released by the law enforcement agencies, the Ganja hospital had reported that the boy had been brought to them beaten, with a closed-head injury and injuries to his abdomen and various parts of his body.
Public distrust toward Azerbaijani law enforcement is so deep that blogger Tural Sadigli has offered a reward of 5,000 euros to anyone who can name Elgun’s killer, despite the content of the official statement.
Public activist Nijat Amiraslanov was arrested and sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention on charges of hooliganism for distributing flyers about Elgun’s death.
On International Children’s Day, a group of young people held a protest in Baku under the slogan “Justice for Ibrahimov,” distributing flyers to passersby, putting up posters in the streets, calling on society not to remain silent, and urging law enforcement agencies to conduct a fair investigation.
Plainclothes police officers not only dispersed the protest but also arrested both the participants and those filming the events. According to unofficial sources, the number of detainees exceeded 60. Among those detained were minors and young women, and police insulted them.
Protesters’ phones were confiscated, their personal messages and contacts were checked, and passwords to their social media accounts were hacked. People connected to the detainees received messages from fake accounts with the logo of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and police images, with message: “You are very active and persistent in the comments—don’t cause problems for me.”
According to human rights defender Gulnara Mehdiyeva, although some of the detainees have been released, their phones have not been returned. “The exact number of detainees is unknown, as there were no independent journalists in the country who could have filmed what happened,” the activist emphasized.
As early as 2007, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared that no police officer would be punished for using force against people during protest actions, as they were merely fulfilling their “professional duty” and “preventing illegal, criminal acts.” In 2013, Aliyev reaffirmed his statement, saying that “no law enforcement officer will be punished.”
Thus, according to the Azerbaijani president’s statements, peaceful protests are criminal acts, while activities such as drug trafficking, torture, and the violation of human rights by law enforcement are acceptable—as part of their “professional duty.”