Lawyer Not Allowed to Visit Psychiatric Hospital to Meet with PFPA Member Aghil Humbatov

Baku / 11.04.20 / Turan: The lawyer Nemat Karimli was not allowed to visit the psychiatric hospital in the village of Mashtaga to meet with his client, member of the Popular Front Party Aghil Humbatov.

The lawyer stated that the activist was illegally detained in the mental hospital. 

Nemat Karimli visited the Republican Psychiatric Hospital N1 in Mashtaga on April 10. However, the head physician did not allow him to meet with Humbatov. According to Karimli, his client is being held in the mental hospital illegally. “Aghil Humbatov was diagnosed with a ‘paranoid medical disorder’, however, it is accepted in medicine that such patients are not placed in compulsory treatment, but are given individual supportive therapy,” the lawyer said.

He noted that the Sabunchu court had already once rejected a request to place Humbatov in compulsory treatment. However, the court of appeal reversed this decision.
“We will of course appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. But the problem is that, due to the quarantine regime, the appellate court’s apparatus doesn’t work and we cannot get a court order to file a cassation appeal,” said the lawyer.

He has never been able to see Humbatov and intends to complain to the Ombudsman.

On March 30, Humbatov was placed in the mental hospital after his criticism of the country's leadership in social networks. On April 1, however, he was released by court order.

Humbatov talked in social networks about the circumstances of his detention and criticized the situation in the psychiatric hospital, inhuman treatment of patients, terrible sanitary conditions and poor nutrition there.   —06D-