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The BBC has prepared an article about critics of the Azerbaijani authorities and methods of disposing them. The article tells about the Azerbaijani human rights activist Emin Huseynov, who headed the Institute of Freedom and Safety (IRFS), an NGO that monitored violations of journalists' rights, and then for more than 6 months he was forced to hide from the authorities in the Swiss embassy in Baku.

As the BBC notes, Huseynov is accused by the Azeri government of tax evasion and abuse of power. Similar charges have been brought against a number of other civil society activists - charges that rights groups describe as "bogus".

The article also presents stories of other activists that have been detained such as Rasul Jafarov, Leyla and Arif Yunus, and Anar Mammadli who have for years openly criticized their government, raising awareness of human rights abuses in the oil and gas-rich country. They have earned recognition for their work from the international community. But Azerbaijani officials, such as President Ilham Aliyev's chief adviser Ramiz Mehdiyev, have branded them "traitors".

The most recent victim of the government's campaign to silence its critics is the investigative reporter Khadija Ismaylova, known for her corruption investigations into the financial schemes of Azerbaijan's president and his clan. In December 2014, she was charged with inciting a man to commit suicide. Last week, she was additionally charged with embezzlement, tax evasion and abuse of power.

Her colleagues, whom I met in December in Baku, described her detention as an attempt to silence her. "By arresting Khadija, the government is sending a message to journalists and to the public in general that those who fight for truth and free speech, those who fight for their rights, will be arrested." said Kamran Mahmudov, who briefly stood in for Ms Ismaylova on her popular radio talk-show on US-funded Radio Liberty. A few weeks after this interview, the authorities raided the offices of Radio Liberty and took the station off air. Kamran Mahmudov was dragged out of his home by the police and taken for questioning. The closure of one of the few remaining independent voices in Azeri media was criticised by the US State Department, the EU and several human rights organizations.

President Aliyev pardoned 87 prisoners shortly before the New Year, among them two journalists and two members of a pro-democracy youth movement. But most of the activists, journalists and lawyers detained remain behind bars.
As the BBC reports the Kurdakhany detention facility on the outskirts of Baku, where he is being held, has been dubbed "the university" because most of the bright minds deemed a threat to the state are being held there.