Nida Civic Movement, commonly referred to as N!DA or simply Nida, is an Azerbaijani civic movement founded in early 2011 by a few young people to achieve democratic and social changes in Azerbaijan. Currently it has over 350 members comprising mainly young individuals as well as well-known politicians and activists. The movement claims to have no affiliation with any of the political parties in the country. Nida means exclamation in Azerbaijani.
Principles
The purpose of the movement is to defend the constitutional and human rights of the society, and preserve the democratic and republican values. N!DA also aims to attract citizens, especially, youth and students into the socio-political processes of the country in order to democratize Azerbaijan and increase their influence in the processes. The manifest of the movement explicitly states that N!DA is not a political party and it has no intention to be represented in the government.
Administrative board
N!DA is coordinated by the administrative board consisting of seven members. The members of the board are elected by a general voting held among the movement members only. The incumbent board was formed after some of the board members and ordinary members were arrested with believed to be fake accusations by the government authorities. The active members who are usually elected to the board are Turgut Gambar and Ulvi Hasanli.
Political prisoners
Seven activists of N!DA, including four board members, were kidnapped and arrested with different bogus accusations a few days after the protests held against the non-combat military deaths in March and April 2013 in Baku, Azerbaijan. One more member of the movement, Omar Mammadov was arrested in January 2014. Initially, a criminal case has been launched on articles 234.1 and 228.1 of the Criminal Code. Later on during the investigation, they faced extra charge under Criminal Code’s article 220.1. On 6 May 2014 the Baku Court of Grave Crimes sentenced all the young men to 6–8 years of imprisonment. International human rights organization, Amnesty International, recognized all the arrested young men as prisoners of conscience. Shahin Novruzlu and Bakhtiyar Guliyev were pardoned and released on 17 October 2014, while the later defected to the government right after his release. The next pardon came on 30 December 2014 when two more activists Uzeyir Mammadli and Zaur Gurbanli were released. The rest of the activists, Rashadat Akhundov, Rashad Hasanov, Mammad Azizov and Omar Mammadov were pardoned and released on 17 March 2016 ahead of Ilham Aliyev's Washington visit for the Nuclear Security Summit. The last imprisoned member of the movement Ilkin Rustamzade was pardoned and released from jail in March 2019.
