Day: April 5, 2026
Tbilisi City Court granted a request to deport journalist Afgan Sadigov to Azerbaijan during a hearing held in the early hours of April 5, shortly after his late-night arrest at home over what police said was “insult” on social media. His rights defenders fear the journalist faces “the gravest risks” to his life, health, and safety if deported.
Sadigov, founder of the Azerbaijani news outlet Azel.tv, who had faced arrest and prosecution in Azerbaijan, reportedly has lived in Georgia since 2023 and spent over seven months in extradition detention following his arrest by Georgian authorities on August 4. He was released on bail in April 2025, a decision that followed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) weeks earlier, which barred Georgia from extraditing Sadigov until a final judgment is issued. He had spent 161 days on a hunger strike while in custody.
His arrest late on April 4, at around 10 pm, was first reported by Tamta Mikeladze of Social Justice Center, a Georgian human rights group that has protected the journalist’s rights.
Sadigov’s wife, Sevinc Sadigova, also posted video footage showing emergency services and what looked like police officials mobilized at the journalist’s apartment door, saying police first tried to break the door, and demanded that the door be opened. After opening the door, the journalist “was violently taken away without showing any valid reason,” Sadigova said.
At 00:15 on April 5, police issued a statement saying Sadigov was detained for “insulting a police officer on social media, under Article 173 of the Administrative Offence Code.” Police said Sadigov would appear before the court, where the judge would review his case and possible penalty.
The statement also noted that the journalist “has been identified 62 times for various types of administrative offenses, including violations of assembly and demonstration rules, for which he has already served administrative detention twice.” Sadigov has been an active participant of the non-stop anti-government protests in Tbilisi.
Later, Mikeladze reported that at around 4 am on April 5, Judge Tornike Kochkiani ruled to deport Sadigov to Azerbaijan. Mikeladze said the judge refused to admit any of the motions from the defense, including a “binding” ECtHR ruling. She noted that the court also refused to consider that Sadigov could have reunited with his family by seeking political asylum in Europe and could have left the country voluntarily.
According to Mikeladze, the arrest came days after Azerbaijan’s authorities abruptly decided on April 1 to discontinue criminal proceedings against Sadigov and notified Tbilisi of the decision. She added that shortly thereafter, on April 3, just a day before the arrest, the Georgian court revoked the previously imposed bail and movement restrictions on him.
“I have not seen such a degree of undermining of the rule of law framework and the [European] Convention in any case in recent years,” Mikeladze wrote on Facebook. In a separate, earlier post, Mikeladze warned Sadigov’s “deportation directly to Azerbaijan, where he faces gravest risks to his life, health, and safety […] would constitute a gravest violation of his rights and those of his family.”
The deportation also follows Georgia’s tightening of migration laws over the past year, including the introduction of expulsion as a penalty for a range of administrative offenses committed by foreign nationals.
More to follow…
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