Politics - 1998 February 21 (Saturday)

Imran Aliyev, the head of the online platform Meclis.info, has declared a hunger strike at the Baku Pretrial Detention Center-1. He announced this in a letter to the public. Aliyev reports that he has been on hunger strike since November 18 in protest against his arrest. "I have been unlawfully detained for 7 months. During this time, judges have been making decisions in my case based on false accusations that are not supported by any evidence."

Osman Narimanoglu, the head of the website demokratik.az, who is serving a prison sentence, declared a hunger strike on November 19 at the Sheki Penitentiary Complex. He is protesting against criminal prosecution and the disregard of his complaints by the Attorney General of Azerbaijan, according to his wife, Arzu Rzayeva.

The President of Türkiye confirmed that he had banned the plane of the Israeli President from using Türkiye's airspace to fly to Baku on November 17. “We severed trade ties with Israel and did not allow it to use our airspace,” he said while speaking at the C20 summit in Brazil. “As you know, we have completely severed trade ties with Israel. As for the visit of the President of Israel to Azerbaijan for the COP-29 summit, we did not allow him to use our airspace,” Erdogan clarified.

On November 20, the French Ambassador to Baku, Anne Bouillon, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. The ambassador was informed of a protest against the attacks on Azerbaijan's presidency of COP29 ahead of and during the climate conference session, the press service of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.