Rally demanding freedom for Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and arrest of Tofig Yagublu

Baku/26.12.22/Turan: On December 23, in the center of Baku, there were attempts to hold a protest action demanding the release of Bakhtiyar Hajiyev. The protesters chanted “Freedom for Bakhtiyar Hajiyev!” ,  “Freedom for political prisoners!”, “Freedom, justice, national government!”, “Don't kill, free!”, “End political repressions” and other slogans. After pushing the protesters into cars, the police took them away from the square.

Tofig Yagublu, a member of the “Musavat” Party and the National Council, who was detained during the action, was administratively arrested for 30 days by the decision of the Sabail District Court.

The health of public figure Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, who said he went on a hunger strike on December 15, has deteriorated in prison. Despite this, it is reported that Hajiyev continued his hunger strike. The activist is in coma.

Rufat Safarov, co-founder of the human rights organization “Defense Line” commented on the topic in the “Difficult Question program.

According to him, there were several reasons that prompted the "Defense Line" to hold a protest action. “One of them is that the country's legal institutions have lost confidence in themselves. Based on the legal rights of Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, we demand his release, and for this purpose we decided to draw the attention of the local community and international organizations to this problem,” the human rights activist said.

Since January 2019, the Azerbaijani authorities have been showing exceptional aggression towards the rights of citizens to freedom of assembly and have imposed a ban on it.

“Having applied to the Executive Power of Baku, we received a standard response about the inexpediency of holding the action. But, despite this, we, being the human rights organization "Defense Line", decided to hold a protest action on December 23 with exclusively legal demands - "Put an end to torture!", "Put an end to bad and degrading treatment!", "Freedom to political prisoners!”, “Freedom to Bakhtiyar Hajiyev!” Safarov says.

The human rights activist considers the rally held on December 23 to have taken place, even though its organizers, including the co-founders of the “Defense Line”, were detained by police an hour before the rally.

“We (about 70 people were detained in total) were kept in the 9th police station for about 5 hours. Violence was used against us, he stressed. –0--