Among those sentenced today is a very good friend of mine, Farid Mehralizada, who was not connected to Abzas but was inserted into the case just for being the finest and most vocally critical economy analyst in the country. Here is his final speech at the trial: freefarid.info/f%c9%99rid-m...

Azerbaijan's veteran opposition politician Tofig Yagublu - who was jailed 8 times, spent over half of past decade in prison and has been there again since 2023 - started hunger strike in detention 10 days ago with one message: either freedom or death. Lawyers warn it won't last long before he dies.

All these follow Aliyev’s interview for the government mouthpieces in January, where he said “we must be active participants of this process (formation of a new world order) … and continue to pursue our agenda.” The agenda, seems, is eliminating any Western norms and institutions from the region.