On January 29, Leyla Aliyeva, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, head and founder of the IDEA Public Union, met with Grethel Aguilar, Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in Gland, Switzerland, Azernews reports.
Day: January 29, 2026
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WhatsApp adds paid plans
WhatsApp is developing several paid subscription options, according to updates found in the beta version of its Android app. In the latest build, version 2.26.4.8, available to members of the Google Play Beta program, signs point to the preparation of an additional paid tier with exclusive features, Azernews reports.
On January 14, the Presidium of the Azerbaijan Bar Association imposed disciplinary sanctions on seven lawyers.
This information was published on the Association’s official website.
According to the statement, “By decisions of the Presidium of the Azerbaijan Bar Association, disciplinary measures were taken against seven lawyers for violations they committed, and two lawyers were instructed to strictly comply with the requirements of the law in their professional activities.” However, the names of those individuals were not mentioned.
In recent years, many lawyers practicing in Azerbaijan have received such warnings. Some have even been expelled from the Bar Association, while others have had their professional activities suspended for a certain period.
Most of the punished lawyers have been those who defended opposition politicians, young activists, and critical journalists. These lawyers have stated that they associate the disciplinary measures with political pressure. The leadership of the Bar Association, however, has explained that the decisions are based on violations of legal requirements.
In Azerbaijan, lawyers’ disciplinary liability is regulated by the Law “On Lawyers and Legal Practice” and the relevant regulations. According to these documents, if a lawyer violates the law or ethical rules while performing their professional duties, the Disciplinary Commission may apply measures such as a warning, reprimand, or suspension of activity for a period ranging from three months to one year. Complete disbarment is possible only by a court decision.Under amendments made to the law in 2025, the suspension of a lawyer’s activity can now last from one to two years, but expulsion from the Bar Association remains possible only by a court ruling.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has already ruled several times that the punishment of Azerbaijani lawyers by the Bar Association constitutes a violation of freedom of expression. In particular, in the cases of Yalchin Imanov, Khalid Bagirov, Elchin Namazov, and Alayif Hasanov, the ECHR concluded that punishing lawyers for criticizing state bodies and law enforcement agencies violated Article 10 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression.
On October 24, 2025, lawyer Zabil Gahramanov, who worked at the Ganja Regional Legal Office, was arrested. He was charged under the Criminal Code with fraud causing significant financial damage and hooliganism involving resistance to a person preventing a breach of public order. According to the investigation, on the day of his detention, Zabil Gahramanov had an argument with a worker at a car wash and allegedly struck him. Gahramanov, however, stated that he considers the charges to be unfounded.
Prior to his arrest, on October 8, based on a complaint submitted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Presidium of the Bar Association had decided to suspend Gahramanov’s legal practice for six months.
The reason given was his statements about “abuses against citizens” at the Ganja City Main Police Department. Following those remarks, the Ministry of Internal Affairs submitted a complaint about him to the Bar Association. The Association, in turn, justified its decision by citing a disciplinary violation.
The post The Bar Association has disciplined seven lawyers, but their names are not disclosed appeared first on MEYDAN.TV.
The post The Bar Association has disciplined seven lawyers, but their names are not disclosed appeared first on azeritimes.com.
OSCE to examine human rights in Georgia
On 29 January, 24 OSCE member states activated the so-called Moscow Mechanism against Georgia — a tool used when there are concerns about a serious deterioration of the human rights situation in a participating state.
The decision provides for the deployment of an independent fact-finding expert mission to assess Georgia’s compliance with its obligations to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with a particular focus on political and civil processes that have unfolded since spring 2024.
The mechanism has previously been used against countries including Russia, Turkmenistan and Belarus, and is being activated for the 17th time since 1990. As part of the process, a special rapporteur will be appointed to prepare a report on Georgia.
The Moscow Mechanism, established within the OSCE in 1991, is designed to investigate alleged human rights violations and allows participating states to launch a fact-finding process without the consent of the country concerned in cases involving “serious allegations of human rights abuses”.
The current initiative was launched by Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
In a joint statement, the countries said they were “closely monitoring the human rights situation in Georgia and growing increasingly concerned”, stressing that, as an OSCE participating state, Georgia is obliged to uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms.
They noted that the OSCE’s Vienna Mechanism had already been activated in December, but that concerns had since intensified — prompting the decision to use the more robust Moscow Mechanism.
The launch of the mechanism followed an appeal to the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights(ODIHR) by four Georgian political coalitions in December 2024.
Tamta Mikeladze, director of the Social Justice Center, explains what the launch of the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism means.
“The use of the Moscow Mechanism means that the human rights situation in Georgia is now being subjected to critical scrutiny by international organisations, and that the Georgian government is already being classified among the most authoritarian countries, alongside Russia and Belarus.
The Moscow Mechanism is one of the toughest and most rarely used tools within the OSCE’s human dimension. It is activated when the situation regarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law in a country is particularly grave, when domestic and traditional monitoring and accountability mechanisms are in crisis, and when urgent international intervention is required.”
The use of this mechanism does not require the government’s consent, which in itself points to a serious deficit of international trust in the country’s authorities.
Importantly, the findings are expected to shape assessments by other international organisations and influence Georgia’s official standing on human rights.”