International support for Zulfugarli brothers

 The act of serious violation of the rights for property of the Zulfugarli brothers has caused increasing attention from international human rights activists. The brothers were deprived of several metallurgy enterprises. 

Last week in Warsaw at the annual summit, 44 human rights organizations appealed to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to restore the rights of the Zulfugarli brothers and to punish the guilty.

Eynulla Fatullayev, the head of the NGO "For Human Rights”, who attended the summit, said that the case of the Zulfgurly brothers has received great international attention, and is considered by the human rights community along with the facts on the property seizure, as the case of Khodorkovsky in Russia, etc.

The appeal to President Ilham Aliyev reads that Nureddin and Logman Zulfugarli were arrested in 2005 on trumped-up charges, after they refused to give their businesses, “Bakyelektroshtamp" and "Bakypoladtekme”, to high-ranking officials. After spending four months in detention, they were forced to cede 80% of their shares.

However, in 2010 they were demanded to abandon their share. The brothers did not agree, and left the country, and their businesses were actually captured by the Baku Steel Company, headed by Rasim Mammadov. In August of the same year Mammadov initiated the violent takeover of another company belonging to the Zulfugarli brothers, the LLC "Birlik". According to Fatullayev, the appeal of the international human rights organizations to the president is a “first signal to Azeri oligarchs that do outrage.”

Head of the NGO "Democratic monitor" Fuad Hasanov said that the international human rights campaign to protect the rights of the Zulfugarli brothers will continue, and the question could be the subject of special hearings in various international organizations.

Aslan Ismailov, the Zulfugarli brothers’ lawyer, said that this case has been considered in Azerbaijan in seven different courts that issued the ruling against the businessmen. The case is currently before the Supreme Court, and the next step will be an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Ismailov said that senior officials are behind the Baku Steel Company. In particular, the head of the board of JSC Rasim Mammadov is a close friend of the son of Ramiz Mehdiyev, the head of the Presidential Administration.—06C--