On 3 September, an Azerbaijani opposition politician, Tofiq Yagublu, was sentenced to 4 years and 3 months of imprisonment in a strict collective colony by Baku City Nizami District Court. The opposition considers the decision unjust and politically motivated. Yagublu has started a hunger strike in protest. 

Yagublu was arrested on 22 March 2020 on charges of hooliganism. In the case brought against him, he was accused of having caused a car accident and attacking a married couple who were passengers in another vehicle. During the court case, the prosecution asked for Yagublu to be sentenced to 4 years and 6 months. The judge shortened that sentence by three months in his decision.  

Yagublu was already imprisoned for two years from 2014 to 2016 on a charge of organising mass protests. Later, he was detained for 30 days for participating in mass opposition protests in Baku on 19 October 2019. 

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic was vocal about the sentence. “The verdict on Tofig Yagublu once again testifies to the need to take serious measures in Azerbaijan to ensure freedom of speech and expression, the rights to freedom and security and fair justice,” she wrote in her micro blog on Twitter. 

The US and UK embassies in Azerbaijan released their press statements in regard to the case. “The conviction of Tofig Yagublu on obviously falsified evidence disappointed the US Embassy,” stated the US embassy.  “During the trial, Yagublu was deprived of the opportunity to use the elements of a fair trial. We urge the Azerbaijani authorities to talk about the recent political arrest trend, reconsider the Yagublu case and respect the constitutional rights of Azerbaijani citizens to freedom of speech and assembly,” the statement further emphasized. The British Embassy called the court's sentence to 4 years and 3 months imprisonment for Yagublu “worrying.”