Ben Cardin
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.
Politics
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On Monday, hearings in the case of activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev continued at the Baku Court for Serious Crimes. At the beginning of the session, Hajiyev drew attention to the unjustified criminal prosecution of activist Raheel Abbasov, who had previously organized public defense for Hajiyev.
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On December 23, the trial of the head of the YouTube resource "Kanal-11" Teymur Kerimov, accused of extortion by threats, continued in the Baku Court of Grave Crimes.
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The head of Mossad (Israel's foreign intelligence service) David Barnea recommended to the country's political leadership strike Iran, not the Houthis, Ynet reported on December 22.
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Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov left for a working visit to Serbia on Monday.
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