Senator Cardin: "Rufat Safarov Was Set To Meet With Me And Other Senators Next Week"

A key U.S. senator on Wednesday urged Azerbaijan to release veteran human rights advocate, Rufat Safarov, 'immediately,' TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"Rufat Safarov was set to meet with me and other Senators next week to receive the State Department's Human Rights Defender Award, but the Azeri regime jailed him on bogus charges," Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said.

Safarov, the director of the local human rights group Defense Line, had been placed in pre-trial detention for four months following his arrest on Monday in the latest of a series of cases in Azerbaijan that have prompted Western concern about free speech and human rights. A former prosecutor himself, Safarov previously served three years in prison before being pardoned by Ilham Aliyev and released in 2019.

According to Safarov's family, he had been due to leave within days for the United States to be presented with a human rights award before being detained this Tuesday.

"His fight for justice transcends prison walls. He must be released immediately," Senator Cardin said.