Gay azerbaijan
A new film supported by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) tells the story about the recent purge against the LGBTI collective in Azerbaijan.
Random arrests
– Our journalist-partners have documented random arrests of 150 people, beatings and use of electroshock, says Mina Skouen, Senior Advisor on LGBTI in NHC.
At least 50 of them were imprisoned for over 20 days. Many of the victims lost their apartments and jobs upon release, and live in fear of new assaults.
Electroshock
– I couldn’t move after they overcome my head, knees and arms with baton and they used electro shock 30-35 times, says Khayal. The 29 year has been too frightened since his release to contact lawyer and have fled his apartment, worried about entity arrested again.
The arrests were “appropriate measures to rebuild public order and security”, according to Azerbaijani authorities. These charges have not been substantiated. The movie exposes the real reason for the purge: Because of their assumed sexual orientation and gender identity.
Calls for action
– NHC calls for international action now against the severe violation of human rights against LGBTI in Azerbaijan documented in the film,
Rainbow Map
2025 rainbow map
These are the main findings for the 2025 edition of the rainbow map
The Rainbow Map ranks 49 European countries on their respective legal and policy practices for LGBTI people, from 0-100%.
The UK has dropped six places in ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Blueprint, as Hungary and Georgia also register steep falls monitoring anti-LGBTI legislation. The data highlights how rollbacks on LGBTI human rights are part of a broader erosion of democratic protections across Europe. Read more in our flatten release.
“Moves in the UK, Hungary, Georgia and beyond signal not just isolated regressions, but a coordinated global backlash aimed at erasing LGBTI rights, cynically framed as the defence of tradition or public stability, but in life designed to entrench discrimination and suppress dissent.”
- Katrin Hugendubel, Activism Director, ILGA-Europe
Malta has sat on uppermost of the ranking for the last 10 years.
With 85 points, Belgium jumped to second place after adopting policies tackling hatred based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.
Iceland now comes third place on the ranking with a score of 84.
The three Babi Badalov has a different take on it. "Eurovision will be held in the five-star Hotel Europa," he says. "Everyone knows that after midnight not far from this hotel you can get gay sex with a transvestite prostitute. "Married men travel there for fun. And yet homosexuality to them is disgusting." He remembers Baku with sadness: "I was a loner, a foreigner, almost an alien". After his asylum claim failed in the UK, Mr Badalov tried France. Two years later he was finally granted political asylum. "It was the most fantastic, happy news in my life," he says. "I screamed, cried and rolled around the floor of the post office. I was out of control." Although he is living in a hostel, he is an established painter and will soon be free to travel around Europe showing his work. But he feels his home country will never be part of Europe. "Everybody's rights are violated in Azerbaijan," says Mr Badalov, "and gays are not an exception. "I doubt that I will live to witness my country join the new world." Over the last several days, police in Baku, Azerbaijan carried out mass arrests of at least 100 members of the LGBT community. In official statements, local authorities and government-friendly NGOs described the arrests as a crackdown on prostitution, but lawyers and local activists describe indiscriminate arrests of same-sex attracted men and gender nonconforming women in organised raids on apartments and bars, as well as seemingly random arrests on the street. Determining the exact number of arrests has been difficult, as many of the detained have been denied access to visitors or arrested multiple times, and those who have been released have not wished to say with anyone outside of the local LGBT community out of fear of further punishment. Several detainees have provided information on condition of anonymity to Civil Rights Defenders via local activists and lawyers. Activists state that the detainees were subjected to beatings, verbal violence, and forced medical examinations, as adv as transsexual women’s heads being forcibly shaven. Many were released only after giving up the addresses of fellow members of the LGBT community, whoEurovision 2012: Azerbaijan's gays not welcome at home
Mass Arrests and Violence of LGBT People in Azerbaijan