The public of Georgia will not allow to hush up the case of Afgan Mukhtarly - participants in the debate

Baku/31.05.17/Turan: On Wednesday the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Political Prisoners organized public hearings on the issue of the arrest of journalist Afgan Mukhtarly. The leader of the Musavat Party, Arif Hajili, proposed a working group or groups to protect the rights of Afgan Mukhtarly, and unite all the parties concerned and forces in this structure. He expressed his readiness to allocate a seat in the Musavat office for this purpose.

Director of the Turan agency Mehman Aliyev said that the fate of Afgan is decided not in Baku, but in Georgia. There, the incident caused a big scandal and it is necessary to raise the issue of the responsibility of official Tbilisi. The public of Georgia actively protests against what happened and considers the Mukhtarly case to be a violation of the sovereignty of the country. The new accusation against Afgan is related to justifying the injuries on the body of Mukhtarly, said the well-known lawyer Fuad Agayev.

"The Mukhtarly case is an analogy with the abduction of Savchenko by Russian separatists.

In this case, the responsibility for this is the special services of Georgia. I believe that an investigation will be conducted in Georgia and the abductees will be found and involved in this," he said.

Agayev noted that there are serious violations in the Mukhtarly case, because the verification of the currency of those passing the border is not within the competence of the Border Guard Service, it is the prerogative of the customs. Therefore, the Azerbaijani authorities violated the law in every way and the arrest of the journalist is absolutely illegal. Human rights activist Oktay Gulaliyev expressed hope that the statement of the Georgian president is a sincere desire to understand this situation and identify the perpetrators.

Former political prisoner Avaz Zeynalli considers kidnapping an activist in the center of Tbilisi and his transfer across the border is impossible without the participation and consent of the Georgian authorities. "Therefore, I do not believe in Margvelashvili's sincerity," he said.

The other participants in the debate expressed a common opinion that the Azerbaijani authorities do not abandon their tried-and-tested policy of bribing and intimidating their opponents, including their own citizens, and Western representatives. Bribery of PACE members is a striking example of this.

Mukhtarly's wife Laila Mustafayeva contacted the Skype participants, saying that the Georgian police did not investigate the kidnapping of the Afghan, pretending that it is conducting investigation.

The authorities responded only after the local press and human rights activists sharply condemned the incident. "Kidnapping and transfer of a person across the border without a passport is impossible without the consent of the Georgian authorities. Therefore, statements about readiness to investigate the disappearance of Afghanistan is a fiction," she said, without excluding the possibility that Afghanistan could take out the embassy of Azerbaijan to Georgia by car.

The leader of the Popular Front Party, Ali Kerimli, believes that the authorities have begun another wave of harassment of opposition and government critics, which began after Mehriban Aliyeva's appointment as vice-president of the country. During this period, 19 activists and opponents of the authorities were arrested. Further, the corrupt media publishes information about the activity of the Azerbaijani opposition in Georgia and begins a demonstrative and open persecution of these individuals.

"Now the Georgian society must recognize that its sovereignty and the image of a democratic country have been violated, or to give an appropriate assessment of Baku's actions," he said. -02B-