Many South Azerbaijani activists were arrested for attempting to visit Babak Castle. Personal identity of 6 activists have been determined as of yet. Abbas Shadmand, Akbar Abulzade, Salar Babazadeh, Behzad Abdi, Mahammad Rashidi, Qasem Dashti were arrested on 17 July 2015 and transferred to an unidentified location for interrogations feared to include ill-treatment and torture.

The activists are known to Iran’s spy agency Ettelaat as most of them have previous convictions for their political and patriotic activities.

The Bazz or Babak Castle is believed to have been built by the ancient Turkic freedom fighters led by Babak Khorramdin in 9th century and used as a stronghold to put aggressive fight against invasion of Azerbaijan by Arabs.
Recently Babak has become the symbol of Azerbaijani liberation movement against Persian regime.