Baku/10.09.21/Turan: Co-founder of the Legal Line organization Rufat Safarov,
wrote the day before on Facebook that many public activists, like himself, are being insulted and threatened. Another public activist, Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, also wrote on Facebook that he was threatened with arrest and even death, demanding that the status of Interior Minister Vilayat Eyvazov be removed.
“In the Main Police Department, I was threatened with arrest, and if necessary, with death, if I did not delete, the status I had written about Vilayat Eyvazov. I said, "Do what you want."
In August 2021, the public organization “Müdafiə Xətti” (Defense Line) published a report on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan. The report refers to threats and pressure on activists.
Zaur Akbar, one of the co-founders of the "Line of Defense", answered questions about threats and harassment of public and political figures in the "Difficult Question" program.
According to him, the reason for the persecution of Rufat Safarov and other activists by the authorities is their human rights activities. In fact, the authorities are seeking to end human rights activities in the country. For this purpose, pressure is exerted on human rights defenders. So, in June of this year, the authorities used their army of trolls, who began to spread false information about his loved ones on behalf of Rufat Safarov. For this purpose, one of the profiles of Rufat Safarov on the social network was hacked and used. And in this profile, with a provocative purpose, on behalf of Rufat Safarov, statuses of an offensive nature were exhibited concerning his relatives, well-known people in society, activists, and members of their families.
According to Zaur Akbar, Rufat Safarov and other activists, human rights activists have repeatedly appealed to law enforcement agencies with a statement to stop these illegal actions. However, the authorities are in no hurry to find and prosecute people who have committed cybercrimes, insulted citizens and are trying to oppose them to each other. Akbar claims that the reason for the impunity of these people is that he cooperates with law enforcement agencies and commit these outrages on the instructions of these bodies. — 0—
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