Ali Qurbanov – believer Date of arrest: 4 May 2026 Charge: Article 234.4.3 (Illegal manufacturing, purchase, storage, transportation, transfer or selling of narcotics, psychotropic substances committed in large amount) of the Criminal Code of the Azerbaijan Republic.
On 4 May 2026, Ali Qurbanov was sentenced to 3 months in a pre-trial detention.
Place of detention: Pre-trial Detention Center № 1 at the Kyurdakhani settlement in Baku City Sabunchu District CONCLUSION: Once again there was a deterioration in Azerbaijani-Iranian relations at the end of 2022.
And it affected the believers of the Muslim Unity Movement (MUM) yet another time.
It should be noted that the MUM Chairman Tale Bagirzade was arrested in 2015, sentenced to a 20-year- imprisonment in 2017, and has been detained as a political prisoner in the Gobustan jail for 7 years.
Ten other MUM members have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment at the same time.
And now, in November-December 2022, four other MUM members were arrested on the charges, which have become “standard", the charges of drug possession.
Yet, the main impact occurred in late January-early February 2023: 44 MUM members were arrested, eight of whom were charged with drug possession, while the rest were jailed under administrative offences, "resisting the police”, for the period from 10 to 30 days.
However, the Azerbaijani authorities did not stop.
In the period March-April, it was launched the second and most extended campaign of the arrests and detentions of believers.
Thus, by mid-April 2023, we were able to obtain reports regarding of 175 believers arrested in March-April of 2023.
Moreover, there is information on the arrests of about 200 believers in the provinces, i.e. the number of arrested believers is more than 370 people.
In addition, there is also information about up to 40 believers emigrated from the country, mostly to Russia, but also to the European countries.
But the arrests of believers in 2023 did not stop there.
In May, it took place another wave of repressions against believers, and in late June and early July there was another campaign of 211 hunting Shi'ite believers.
In September, there was another round of the believers' arrests across the country.
In total, 535 Shiite believers were arrested in Azerbaijan between the end of January and the end of December 2023.
It's an interesting detail: all those arrested were recognised by the authorities' propaganda as "agents of Iran", however, their arrests were carried out not by the State Security Service, which deals with such cases but by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
At the same time, all Shiites were arrested as "drug addicts", and in their cases there is not even a single reference to Iran.
In 2024, the situation with Shiites has not changed.
The arrests of Shiites as "agents of Iran" were constantly ongoing, particularly large-scale arrests took place in the country's second city, Ganja, as well as in the southern part of the country.
A total number of arrested Shiite believers in 2024 was around 140.
Overall, following the launch of a large-scale crackdown in January 2023, approximately 720 Shiites had been arrested by early December 2025.
Some 250 believers, including 15 theologians, were identified and included on the political prisoners list.
The hardest impact of the authorities was on the MUM.
In total, 78 MUM members have been arrested.
By the end of 2025, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran had improved, and that was mirroring on the situation with the Shiites.
Their arrests were suspended.
Moreover, on 15 December 2025, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, submitted an Amnesty Act to Parliament, that immediately approved it and its implementation began on 22 December, and was to be completed within four months.
The amnesty applied almost exclusively to the believers, and only to those who had been arrested in 2023 as alleged “agents of Iran”, although officially they had been convicted as supposedly “drug addicts” under the same Article 234.1-1 of the AR Criminal Code, and sentenced to the period of three year-imprisonment.
However, it was applied only to those whose remaining prison term should be over in several months, while some believers were due to be released even in a few weeks, in any case.
By mid-January 2026, 68 believers had been released, including 8 members of the MUM.
In total, by the end of March 2026, after the completion of the amnesty, it became known that 122 persons convicted on political grounds had been released after 22 December.
Of these, 118 released individuals were Shiite believers, as well as four persons convicted in the so-called “Imishli case”.
It is true that the names of 22 released believers were not included on the list of political prisoners.
The fact is that information about many arrests of believers, especially in the provinces, becomes known late or not in full.
However, on 28 February 2026, the war of the United States and Israel against Iran began.
This immediately affected the position of Shiite believers, who had long become hostages of Iranian- Azerbaijani relations.
At once, as if on command, arrests of Shiite believers began again, including some of those who had been granted amnesty in December 2025 or later.
Once again, Shiite believers were arrested as “Iranian agents”, but this served exclusively for propaganda purposes both inside the country and abroad.
Meanwhile, the same accusations of drug use appeared once again in the investigation materials.
In total, in the period between 28 February and by the beginning of May 2026, more than 220 Shiite believers had been arrested.
Unfortunately, to find out the names of all the arrested Shiite believers is an extremely difficult task and requires considerable time.
Thus, there are 182 believers on the current list, or 55 percent of the total number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. 212 GROUP № 10 SENTENCED ON TERTER CASE – 8 persons Clarification of the Terter case On 7 May 2017, the Prosecutor General, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security Service issued a joint statement on revealing a group of military personnel and civilians that have been compromising military secrets to the intelligence and special units of the Armenian Armed Forces (for mere satisfaction of «material interests»).
Authorities opened a criminal case with article 274 (State treason) of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan Republic and launched a special investigative group with the members of the above-mentioned agencies.
On 7 May 2017 the wave of arrests affecting not just the military but also civilian residents of the villages in close proximity of the frontline, targeted mainly Terter region.
On 7-8 May 2017 media reported 47 arrests within one day, yet they did not specify names of the detainees.
After that date press stopped reporting the arrests, yet unconfirmed information from the frontline suggested that number of arrested people reached 400 by 17 May 2017.
People were taken from their homes or from the work places.
The arrests were taking places without providing the accused with the lawyer, the imprisonment was happening without the court decisions.
Journalists and editors reporting on these arrests were called into the Prosecutor general’s office to warn them against distribution of «state secrets».
On 16 May 2017, IPD already started receiving information about individuals tortured to death.
Finally, was provided information about death of 11 people killed without investigation or trial.
The bodies were not passed to the families of the killed, they were buried, in such way, trying to prevent of seeing bodies mutilated under tortures.
However, some were managed to see the disfigured bodies of their loved ones.
In 2018 closed trials took place.
Military prosecutor Khanlar Valiyev fabricated charges against 78 citizens of Azerbaijan Republic.
