Rights groups demand safety for queer activist Nana Babazade

Full text of the statement:

We have gathered here today to expose the systematic human rights violations experienced by Azerbaijani queer, feminist, and vegan activist Nana Xanım Babazade and to raise national and international public awareness so that she can settle in a safe country.

Nana Xanım Babazade advocates for animal rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. However, because of both her activism and her queer identity, she has become a target of both her family and state authorities. For many years, she was subjected to physical and psychological violence within her family, and when she attempted to escape this family pressure, she received death threats from her relatives.

During the period when she was pursuing her master’s degree at Istanbul University, she became a target of migration regimes and border policies. She was summoned by official institutions and pressured to provide information about people in her close social circle. She was forced to disclose information about her friends, community, and people she was in contact with; these pressures systematically aimed to turn a human rights defender into an informant and agent against her own community.

When she refused to comply with these pressures, she was taken into custody. During her detention, she was subjected to various forms of physical and psychological pressure intended to force cooperation, yet she refused to surrender her will in the face of practices that disregarded human dignity.

During her detention in the Arnavutköy and Çatalca Removal Centers, she was systematically pressured to sign “voluntary return” documents. She was subjected to numerous human rights violations including strip searches, physical and psychological violence, denial of access to healthcare, and deprivation of basic necessities. Because she is vegan, she was unable to access suitable food, suffered prolonged malnutrition, and despite her deteriorating health condition, she could not receive necessary treatment and was only transferred to a hospital once her condition became critical.

After nearly two months of unlawful detention, Nana was forcibly returned to Azerbaijan, where her life was under threat. From the moment she returned to Azerbaijan, living safely became practically impossible. Due to threats from her family, surveillance by state institutions, and being publicly targeted, she was forced to constantly relocate and live in hiding.

Later, when she attempted to leave the country, she discovered that a report declaring her passport lost had been filed in Turkey without her knowledge or consent.

Today, Nana’s situation is not merely a migration story; it is the result of systematic precarization, isolation, and the destruction of living spaces. After leaving Azerbaijan, she went to Georgia, but due to the close political relationship and security cooperation between Azerbaijan and Georgia, she did not feel safe there either.

There are numerous examples of Azerbaijani dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders being subjected to pressure, surveillance, and intimidation in Georgia, and given Nana’s oppositional identity, remaining there also posed serious security risks. Therefore, she was forced to leave Georgia.

She moved to another country she could enter visa-free. However, outside Georgia she only has the right to stay for 90 days, forcing her to live under the constant threat of deportation. She does not possess permanent residency, international protection status, or any long-term legal status.

Today, Nana is struggling to survive not only as an activist but also as a victim of transnational mechanisms of repression. She is a human rights defender targeted because of her queer identity, feminist struggle, and advocacy for animal rights. She is an activist threatened by her family, left unprotected by states, and deprived of the right to live safely.

We demand that Nana’s safety be ensured immediately, that her access to international protection mechanisms be guaranteed, that the serious risks she would face if returned to Azerbaijan be recognized, and that transnational repression directed at human rights defenders, feminists, LGBTQ+ activists, and animal rights advocates come to an end.

What Nana has experienced is not an isolated case. This case is the result of authoritarian regimes’ policies of pursuing dissidents, feminists, queer people, and human rights defenders beyond borders and attempting to isolate, recruit as informants, and silence them.

We condemn the pressure, intimidation, and repression policies imposed on our classmate, our companion in struggle, Nana, and on dozens of other women, migrants, and queer friends like her. We will continue to fight for all those subjected to such policies.

Demands

We demand the immediate activation of necessary international protection mechanisms so that Nana Xanım Babazade can continue her life safely in a secure country.

We demand an independent and effective investigation into human rights violations occurring in removal centers in Turkey.

We demand an end to policies of informant recruitment, repression, surveillance, transnational intimidation, and criminalization directed at human rights defenders, feminists, LGBTQ+ activists, and animal rights advocates.

We demand that states end practices that criminalize human rights defenders, attempt to recruit them as informants, and endanger their lives.

We call on national and international human rights institutions, democratic public opinion, and civil society organizations to strengthen solidarity with Nana and to take action against these human rights violations.