Politically motivated arrests are on the rise

Baku/24.05.22/Turan: In recent days, appeared reports about an increase in politically motivated arrests and pressure on public activists. On May 21, blogger and former political prisoner Rashad Ramazanov was re-arrested. He was again accused of drug trafficking and sentenced to four months in prison. After his release, Ramazanov was in exile for some time and, being abroad, continued to criticize the authorities.

On May 20, Razi Humbatov, a member of the Muslim Unity Movement, known for his critical attitude towards the government and public activities, was sentenced to six years in prison on drug trafficking charges.

During Razi Humbatov's trial, police removed members of the Movement who had gathered in front of the courthouse. Later it turned out that Agali Yahyaev, Imran Mammadli and Elgiz Mammadov were sentenced to 30 days of administrative arrest. Suleyman Alekperov and Mayil Karimov were taken to the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Combating Organized Crime and subjected to severe torture.

Immigrant activist Ziya Ibrahimli, deported to Azerbaijan from Germany, was detained on May 19 at the Baku airport. Ibrahimli is the sixth immigrant activist arrested in Azerbaijan on various charges after being deported from Germany.

Meanwhile, a new lawsuit has been filed against the chairman of the Citizens and Development Party, Ali Aliyev, who is serving a 6-month prison sentence.

Rufat Safarov, chairman of the human rights organization “Line of Defense”, talks about all this in the  “Difficult Question” program.

According to Safarov, there is nothing surprising in the fact that repressions have become more frequent recently.

"Why don't they get involved? For many years now, the goal of our government has been to keep the repressions and persecution of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience from stopping. Since this is one of the main methods of the government, I am not at all surprised by this,” he said, adding that there have always been persecutions for political reasons in the country.

According to the human rights activist, the persecution of social and political activists, bloggers, and media representatives has indeed intensified in recent years.

“The government is already openly repressing social activists. They are publicly abducted, tortured, detained by citizens who gather before the court during the trials of political activists. They are treated rudely, using physical violence,” Safarov stressed.

He also noted that crimes committed against such people are not being investigated. As an example, he cited the investigation into the case of journalist Ayten Mammadova, who was attacked by an unknown person who, putting a knife to her throat, threatened her daughter's life, demanding to stop exposing publications.

“The problem is that no serious investigation is being carried out. All this indirectly confirms that the responsibility for what is happening should be borne by the government, law enforcement agencies and criminal groups associated with law enforcement agencies,” he stressed.

The human rights activist also drew attention to the fact that more and more people are being seized on trumped-up charges, and the use of torture has taken on horrendous proportions.

“Unfortunately, society is weak and unable to force the government to listen to its demands, and therefore we, human rights activists, are powerless against this arbitrariness,” Safarov admitted. –0--