In Azerbaijan, TikToker arrested for distributing footage of armed forces

The State Security Service of Azerbaijan announced the detention of a TikToker who posted on the Internet a video about the movement of military vehicles of the country’s armed forces.

“On March 17 ... videos appeared showing the movement of military vehicles, which claimed that the Azerbaijani army was allegedly conducting ... military operations on the state border,” the State Security Service of Azerbaijan reported.

As it turned out, Samad Bakhman oglu Rustamov filmed the movement of military vehicles of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the Gadabay District on February 27, 2025.

“He posted this video, the distribution of which is prohibited by law, on his TikTok page. These shots were then used to spread false news by adding videos related to different periods,” the report stated.

The State Security Service of Azerbaijan reminded citizens that “filming and distributing footage related to military units of the Azerbaijani army, their deployment ... entails criminal liability.”

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported about cases of Azerbaijani journalists being summoned to the prosecutor’s office for disseminating military information. So, in the summer of 2022, employees of the General Prosecutor’s Office warned Fikret Ibishbeyli, the owner of the jamaz.info website and Agil Agishev, the owner of the miq.az website, about the inadmissibility of disseminating information that casts a shadow on the country’s armed forces. The journalists considered such conversations a violation of freedom of speech. On July 27, a criminal case was instituted against military blogger Tofik Shakhmuradov for publishing prohibited information on Facebook*. The court arrested the blogger for 30 days. At the same time, the prosecutor’s office issued a warning to activist Ruslan Izzetli for publishing a critical post on a social networking service about the problems of the country’s armed forces.

*On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.