Baku Appeals Court Leaves PFPA Activist Uzeyir Abbasov in Custody

Baku / 14.09.17 / Turan: The Baku Appeals Court (BAC) today rejected the complaint of the activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) Uzeyir Abbasov about his administrative arrest for 30 days. Turan was informed about this by the lawyer Asabali Mustafayev.

According to the lawyer, Abbasov was detained on September 2. He was taken from his home to the 8th police precinct of the Sabail District Police Department. In the police, the activist faced a claim in connection with a political cartoon reposted by him on Facebook with an added commentary of his own. All critical statuses of the activist were destroyed.

After that, he was released, but obliged to come to the Main Police Department of Baku the next day. From the police, Abbasov went to the US embassy to talk about what had happened to him. But at the threshold of the diplomatic mission he was detained. On September 5, the Sabail District Court sentenced the activist to 30 days of administrative arrest on charges of not submitting to the police, having found him guilty under Article 535.1 (non-compliance with the lawful requirements of police officers) of the Code of Administrative Offenses of Azerbaijan.

According to the lawyer, BAC held the proceedings formally. BAC did not even take into account the fact that before introducing Abbasov to justice, he was illegally kept in custody for 61 hours.

"But we had to go through this stage to apply to the European Court of Human Rights," Mustafayev said.

Abbasov complained about the conditions of detention in the detention center for people arrested administratively. In particular, there are four people in the cell designed for two people. As a result, they sleep in turns. The lawyer will contact the appropriate authorities in this regard. -06D--