An activist who organised pro-democracy protests in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan through social networking website Facebook was jailed on Wednesday for two years for evading military service, his supporters said.

United States-educated Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, 29, was arrested after he was listed among the creators of a Facebook page discussing a "people's revolution" in the mainly Muslim state, an important supplier of oil and gas to the West.

"We were expecting such a verdict. It was a politically motivated case," his brother Vugar Hajiyev told AFP after the ruling in the western city of Ganja.

"We will appeal against the court's decision," he said.

Hajiyev's arrest caused rights group Amnesty International to accuse the Azerbaijani authorities of using "harassment and intimidation" against government opponents.

The activist stood as an independent candidate in parliamentary elections in November 2010, during which he criticised the authorities and described the polls as rigged.

Western observers assessed the vote as flawed but President Ilham Aliyev's governing party, which won a landslide victory, insisted that the election had "conformed to European standards".

Police have broken up several small protests in the capital Baku since the start of this year, detaining scores of people.