Activists� mobile phones and documents are not returned

Baku / 04.02.19 / Turan: The past month was full of all kinds of protests and rallies over several years. Accordingly, the number of fines, summons to police stations and administrative arrests increased.

Almost all the protest were held in defense of the arrested blogger Mehman Huseynov, who at the end of last month was charged with beating a correctional officer in which the blogger served his sentence. A statement by Huseynov, addressed to the public that he was on a hunger strike in protest against false accusations, shook the youth, who turned to the tactics of both virtual and uncoordinated actions.

One of such protests was held on January 6 near the Baku Court of Appeal. Before the start, the rally was interrupted by law enforcement officers, some participants were detained. Three of them - journalist Ismail Islamoglu, Goshgar Ahmedov and Mete Turksoy were sentenced to administrative arrest by the court for various periods of time - from 20 to 25 days.

However, the misadventures of the arrested activists did not end there. After their release, they didn"t count their mobile phones, which they took away from them during their arrest. According to Ismail Islamoglu, they were detained by officers of the 28th police station of the Yasamal district: "During the arrest, we took away all the things that we still have not received back. Our phones and social media accounts have been hacked. In particular, my phone was active on the fourth day of my arrest, and all messages were read," the journalist said.

He added that, despite repeated calls to the "102" service, there is still no result: "We are sent under the pretext of being called back, but not being called back and not reporting anything. At the 28th police station, we were informed that they had carried our phones to the Ministry of the Interior. I want to say that if any actions are performed with the help of my phone, I am not responsible for this."

Goshgar Ahmedov also told Turan that, in addition to the mobile phone, his documents selected during the arrest are not returned.

Mete Turksoy, in turn, said that after his release, he began to feel shadowed.

The duty unit of the 28th police station said they did not know what was going on. The Ministry of the Interior was unable to receive a comment. -0-