2020 Azerbaijani protests

The 2020 Azerbaijani protests, also known within Azerbaijan as the Karabakh March (Azerbaijani: Qarabağ yürüşü), were series of civil protests from 12 to 15 July in various cities and towns in Azerbaijan. They erupted during the Armenian–Azerbaijani border clashes, with the protestors demanding full-scale war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Initial protests erupted on 12 July, in Gobu, where the Azerbaijani refugees of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War live. Though the local police initially appealed to the crowd to disperse, the crowd ignored them. The Rapid Police Unit (RPU) then intervened and dispersed the protestors, numbering around 700 to 800 people, in the early hours of 13 July. On 14 July, after the deaths of Major General Polad Hashimov and Colonel Ilgar Mirzayev during the border clashes with Armenia, about 30 to 50 thousand people, calling for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic-related quarantine, war against Armenia, country-wide mobilisation and the resignation of Najmeddin Sadikov, the chief of general staff of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, demonstrated in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Sumgayit, with smaller rallies in support of the military in other cities around Azerbaijan. After the initial demonstrations, a smaller group stormed the Parliament building, protesting the government's inaction, though security forces later evicted them. Subsequent clashes between the demonstrators and security forces resulted in seven police officers being injured, and several cars being damaged. The seemingly impromptu rally lasted well into the early hours of 15 July. It was the largest demonstration in Azerbaijan in years.

No opposition or government figure appeared in front of the crowd when they stormed Parliament. Analysts said there was "neither a government official nor an intellectual" who could stand up to such a crowd. Some opposition members said that they "did not appear that day because they were worried about provocation". Government officials stated the government did not address the crowd because of the "restrictive and stay-at-home measures" because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some interpreted the Parliament break-in, and some of the earlier episodes, as provocations meant to discredit the protesters. According to Zaur Shiriyev, a Baku-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, the death of Hashimov and other high-ranking officers was a "turning point" and had "changed people's minds".

The Azerbaijani government regarded the storming of the Parliament as a "provocation", with President Ilham Aliyev blaming the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), the main opposition party, for the incident, though the PPFA declared its members innocent. The Azerbaijani authorities launched a criminal case over the incident and completed their preliminary investigation over the arrests on 11 September. 36 people were arrested—16 were members of the PFPA. Despite this, according to other Azerbaijani sources, as many as 120 people were detained after the protests, including journalists. Relatives of some detainees said that they could not get information about their family members for more than a day. According to some reports, some detainees were not fed or given a place to sleep.

The protests are believed to have led to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war later in the year.