DHS Presses on Human Rights Defenders?

The head of the NGO Institute of Human Rights and Freedoms (IHRF), Elchin Namazov, says that he has been under pressure since January 7, after he sent a request to the prosecutor about Ramiz Mehdiyev, head of the presidential administration, corruption responsibility. Elshad Abdullayev bases the request on Internet videos.

On January 8, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), tried to blackmail one of Namazov’s colleagues to denigrate the latter, according to the statement from the Institute of Human Rights and Freedoms.  " DHS called one of the members of IHRF, and tried to intimidate him and force him to take part in an operation against Namazov. In particular, he was proposed to organize taking of bribes together with Namazov. In this case, Namazov would be arrested, and his colleague would be released and presented a car “for his service”.

"However, this proposal was rejected, then DHS workers began to blackmail the man in a very indecent form," the statement said.

The name of the employee called by DHS was not disclosed in the statement, but as noted in the report, details of this provocation will be disclosed to the public.

Turan’s attempts to get a comment on the matter from DHS were to no avail, as no one in the public relations department of the organization responded to the phone calls. -05D-