The Munich Face-off: Emin Huseynov Confronts Ilham Aliyev Amidst Tight Control

The Munich Security Conference (February 13–15) usually hosts important talks on global strategy. But the 2026 meeting saw a tense face-off between Azerbaijan's leaders and a journalist in exile. The Aliyev government treated the conference as a carefully planned PR event. To control the message, they flew in a group of friendly journalists from outlets like AZTV, Real TV, and Public TV. This was a move to create a positive image of President Ilham Aliyev in a Western setting.

This plan met a challenge in the form of Emin Huseynov, an independent journalist who heads the Institute for the Freedom and Safety of Journalists (IRFS). Huseynov, who lives in Switzerland, had accreditation that gave him access to the President. This access is something the Azerbaijani government usually prevents. The situation tested the regime's tolerance. While state-approved reporters had easy access to create staged photo ops, Huseynov's attempts to speak with the leadership were blocked through physical and tactical means to shield the President from outside questioning.

Security perimeters are meant for physical safety in global diplomacy. In Munich, however, the Azerbaijani security team used these measures to censor. The perimeter became a moving barrier, not to protect the President from physical harm, but to quiet a critical voice whose questions threatened the government's carefully crafted image.

The actions against Huseynov involved pushing him back and blocking his view. Security officers, including one identified as Ceyhun, physically stopped the journalist from approaching the President. In another move, they used a large umbrella as a visual and physical block. This umbrella trick kept Huseynov from seeing and filming the President, shielding him from the journalist's presence. It is worth noting that the security team acted with more restraint than they typically do in Baku, likely because of the Western cameras and the standards of the conference venue.

Even with this coordination, the incident showed internal issues and a lack of competence within the Azerbaijani government. When these internal barriers broke down, Huseynov managed to get past the security and directly confront the President.

This led to a brief but revealing exchange that exposed the real views of the Azerbaijani leadership. It was more than just a dismissive comment; it was an over-the-top reaction that exposed the limits of the regime's carefully constructed international image.

When Huseynov asked Aliyev about the crackdown on political opponents and the suppression of the press in Azerbaijan, the President responded by saying that “There is no independent media in the world."

This statement was a strategic whataboutism designed to weaken the idea of global journalism. By saying that no press is truly free, Aliyev tried to suggest that democratic systems are no different from his own authoritarian one. He used this argument to justify limiting the media in his country. If no press is truly free, then jailing journalists in Baku is just a local version of a global trend, and not a rights violation. It was a rare moment where Aliyev's true thinking—that the press is just a tool of the state—was exposed to an international audience.

The situation worsened on February 15 during an exchange between Huseynov and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva. This was a serious breach of diplomatic rules, shifting from political disagreement to personal attacks.

When questioned about Azerbaijan's political climate, the Vice President asked for Huseynov's name. Realizing who he was, Aliyeva stopped discussing politics and instead insulted him. She claimed that he hid in the Swiss Embassy in Baku dressed as a woman when he fled Azerbaijan in 2014. This unusual loss of composure by the Vice President was not spontaneous. It was a response to an investigation by Emin's brother, the blogger Mehman Huseynov. Mehman had recently looked into the Aliyev family's private affairs, questioning the citizenship and voting status of Alyona Aliyeva, the President's daughter-in-law.

To be accurate, the Vice President's claims need to be considered alongside the facts of the 2014 crackdown.

The events in Munich highlight a key conflict: the Azerbaijani government tried to use a Western democratic event to improve its image, but instead revealed its intolerance of dissent to the world. The government's plan to bring a friendly press corps backfired. Their presence created the very press scrum that allowed Huseynov to force an unplanned interaction.

The effort to discredit Huseynov did not end in Munich. After the conference, state-backed media outlets, especially Qafqazinfo, began a digital attack on his character using AI-created images. These fake photos, showing Huseynov in a dress, represent a second layer of government control, where physical blocking is followed by online attacks.

In the end, the Munich incident shows a clear reality for Azerbaijani civil society. While the Aliyev government wants the prestige of global diplomatic events, it cannot accept the basic principles of those events—especially the accountability that comes from a free press. For Azerbaijani journalists in exile, the government's security measures remain a constant threat, whether in Baku or at international summits.