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The decree of the president of Azerbaijan about pardoning has come into force. The decree signed on 18 March by Ilham Aliyev applied to 101 people, Azerbaijani information agency APA reports. 

The list of those pardoned includes Bashir Suleymanli, the executive director of Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, Ramil Veliyev, detained during the protest Freedom to Hijab, and Orkhan Eyubzadeh, NIDA civil movement activist. News outlet Haqqin.az adds that Musavat opposition party activist Shahla Mukhtarova is in the list. The full list of those pardoned is published on the site 1news.az.

At the beginning of 2013 NIDA movement activists called on the people to take part in the protest against the numerous deaths of Azerbaijani soldiers in non-combat situation. Thus, in 2012, according to "Doctrine", the Azerbaijani military investigations center, 97 soldiers were killed in the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan, 80% of which died in the non-combat situation.

On the eve of the protest of 10 March 2013 three activists were detained. They were charged with possessing Molotov cocktails that they allegedly were going to use during the protest. Civil Movement NIDA denied the claims of the MNS and the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan that during the search of the apartment of three activists Molotov cocktails and drugs had been found. Relatives of the arrested stated that all that stuff "found" in the apartments was planted by the Azerbaijani enforcers.

At the end of 2010 the Azerbaijani authorities banned wearing hijabs at school which gave rise to mass protest of Muslim believers in the republic. In January 2011, the leader of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan Movsum Samedov condemned Azerbaijani authorities for banning the headscarves in schools, denounced corruption and human rights violations in the country and called on the Azerbaijani people to rise against the oppressive regime. Samedov and several of his supporters were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. 2012 also saw dozens of cases of Muslim believers’ arrests on various charges from drug possession to cooperating with Special Services of Iran, weapon possession, organizing acts of terrorism, etc. On 22 April, 2013 eight participants of the protest Freedom to Hijab – which had taken place on 5 October, 2012 in front of the building of the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan – were convicted. 

The Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre carried out a monitoring of the presidential elections on 9 November, 2013 and pointed out numerous violations of law. In late October Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan filed a criminal case and carried out investigations on Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre. In May 2014 the executive director of the Centre Bashir Suleymanli was sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment.