Baku / 03.04.19 / Turan: The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch condemned the re-arrest of the NIDA activist Bayram Mammadov in Azerbaijan two weeks after leaving prison.
"He was serving a 10-year term since May 2016 on fictitious drug possession charges after writing satirical graffiti on a monument to the ex-president of Azerbaijan. He was released on March 16, 2019, by pardon.
The day before his re-arrest, Mammadov gave an interview to a local online publication criticizing the authorities," the April 3 statement from HRW says.
"The re-arrest of Bayram Mamedov is another example of the intolerance of the Azerbaijani government to criticism and contempt for freedom of speech," said George Gogia, HRW"s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia.
Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release him and ensure the responsibility of those responsible for his arrest and cruel treatment, he said. HRW notes Mamedov"s statement on April 2 at the Baku Appeal Court about torture of him. The Court of Appeal upheld his arrest.
Azerbaijan is a party to many human rights treaties, including the UN Convention against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights, which require the authorities to provide numerous guarantees against arbitrary detention and protection against torture.
For many years, the authorities of Azerbaijan have been carrying out repressions against critics, detaining dozens of journalists, civil and religious activists on politically motivated charges.
On March 16, the president signed a decree pardoning several hundred prisoners, including 51 people whom local human rights activists consider to be political prisoners, including Mamedov.
"The new detention of Mamedov casts a shadow on the previous release of political prisoners in Azerbaijan," said Gogia. "The authorities must act quickly in order to release him and ensure that pardon is a genuine step to improve human rights in Azerbaijan," the HRW representative said.
On Wednesday morning, lawyer Elchin Sadigov was again prevented from meeting with Mamedov in the Binagadi detention center, offering to come after three in the afternoon. At the same time, they did not accept a program from him for Mamedov, stating that transfers to Bayram are prohibited. -16B-
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