[1] Known for his reporting on forced evictions in Baku, Abbasov was badly beaten in 2012, allegedly by SOCAR security personnel.
[1][4] After he began his reporting, security personnel for the company sent a digger to destroy his father's home, damaging the roof and walls.
(Craniocerebral injury, concussion of the brain) On 9 October 2005, during dispersal of an opposition rally in the center of Baku, a plainclothes policeman hit Abbasov with a brass knuckle on his right temple and left side of the jaw (Craniocerebral injury, concussion of the brain, several teeth broken.)
On 20 March 2009, employees of the Ministry of National Security of Nakhchivan Republic arrested Abbasov by pulling a sack over his head, and for three hours the minister himself questioned him under physical and psychological pressure.
[9] An aide to president Aliyev denied the journalists' allegations, saying that Abbasov had in fact been assaulted by "foreign special services", commonly understood to refer to agents of Azerbaijan's regional enemy Armenia.
[10] Human Rights Watch named the case as part of "Azerbaijan’s appalling record on freedom of expression",[6] and called for "a prompt and effective investigation into the vicious attack".
[9] Amnesty International condemned that "journalists in the process of exposing human rights abuses are themselves coming under attack by state officials bent on preventing them from reporting the truth", and called for the case to be "thoroughly and impartially investigated".