National Council`s of Democratic Forces statement on the continued repression and political arrests in Azerbaijan

Baku/03.06.22/Turan: On May 28, as the Azerbaijani people celebrated the Independence and Republic Day, the government began to fabricate a criminal case against yet another political rival. APFP activist Razi Alishov was detained in Ganja and his family was informed that he was being investigated on drug charges. On May 30, Razi Alishov was remanded in custody for two months on charges of drug trafficking.

Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies often arrest opposition political activists on drug charges. Razi Alishov is yet another opposition activist charged under this article.

With the arrest of Razi Alishov, the government has once again acknowledged that it does not intend to change its method of governance and cannot do without repression and political arrests. Otherwise, no new political arrest would have been ordered immediately after the incomplete pardon order signed on May 27, which included several political prisoners.

Several other political arrests have been ordered in the recent months prior to the latest arrest of Razi Alishov. APFP activist Shahin Haji, MUM member Razi Humbatov, CDP chairman Ali Aliyev, political migrants deported from Germany Malik Rzayev, Mutallim Orujov (APFP member), Jafar Mirzayev, Punhan Karimli (APFP member) and Ziya Ibrahimli as well as former political prisoner and blogger Rashad Ramazanov are amongst those recent politically motivated arrests. 

Meanwhile, political administrative arrests and police violence have continued. For example, on May 20, during MUM member Razi Humbatov’s trial, many other members of the organization were detained, three of whom (Agali Yahyayev, Imran Mammadli and Elgiz Mammadov) were sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention, while two  (Suleyman Alakbarov and Mail Karimov) were taken to the Interior Ministry's Office for Combating Organized Crime and subjected to severe torture. They were threatened with humiliation and sexual violence, and forced to promise on video to never attend such trials again. 

Aliyev's response to people's expectations, calls of the international community for political reforms in Azerbaijan and a once and for all solution to the problem of political prisoners, an end to administrative violence was the following: the repression machine does not stop, new groups of political prisoners are on their way. The repressive apparatus has been working in this way for almost 20 years. Political opponents are arrested on trumped-up charges while political prisoners are tortured. Administrative arrests, illegal dismissals, threats to family members, and other threats are widely used against political activists.

Meanwhile, some political prisoners who have served most of their sentences are pardoned once a year, more often every 2-3 years while Aliyev's lobbyists are campaigning in the world's major capitals deceiving the world about his ‘serious reforms’. Some politicians and diplomats in the West who are prone to deceiving themselves end up believing these deceptive lies. Thus, the Aliyev regime relaxed, continues to fill the vacated places in prisons with new political prisoners. It is no coincidence that more than 100 political prisoners remain in prisons after the last pardon.

The people of Azerbaijan on their part must respond to each new wave of repression in a more organized way by resisting and showing political activism. They must show that repression does not frighten them, rather increases their anger and rage towards a regime that wants to forcefully prolong its life through repression, reads the statement, by the National Council of Democratic Forces of Azerbaijan. -0-