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Europe’s complex relationship with Azerbaijan

Relations between Brussels and Baku have largely been based around continued shipments of oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. However, such links obscure a delicate human rights situation in Azerbaijan that ultimately challenges Europe’s ability to both bolster and promote its liberal democratic values in the wider region.

Four years ago, Günel Hasanli was secretly filmed at home having consensual sex with her boyfriend. The video of the 38-year-old Azerbaijani woman later went viral on social media. Hasanli was publicly humiliated, it seems, for being the daughter of Jamil Hasanli: a prominent Azerbaijani historian, author and opposition politician.

July 8, 2025 - JP O'Malley - AnalysisIssue 4 2025Magazine

Oil being pumped outside Baku. Photo: Shutterstock

“This video is a form of political blackmail by [our president] Ilham Aliyev, and [the] security agencies of the state,” Jamil Hasanli wrote on Facebook, shortly after the tape surfaced. Günel Hasanli’s story is not an anomaly. Today, many women face similar episodes of public shaming in Azerbaijan.

“The government of Azerbaijan actively targets women journalists and human rights activists by using secret video cameras to film them having sex in their homes and these videos are then leaked on social media,” explained the Azerbaijani freelance journalist, Arzu Geybulla, from Istanbul, where she has been living in exile for more than a decade. “Through surveillance programmes like Pegasus, many women in Azerbaijan who criticize their government have had their personal data stolen. In some cases, intimate pictures of these women later mysteriously appeared in online groups, where they were ridiculed,” the 41-year-old Baku-born writer said. “There were other cases of Azerbaijani women having their personal information shared publicly, in an attempt to threaten them.”

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