Monitoring Center of Political Prisoners Condemns Pressure on Movsum Samedov in Prison

The new incarceration of the leader of the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (IPA) in the punishment cell is another vivid example of the policy of total repression of the country's authorities against religious activists. This was stated by the Monitoring Center for Political Prisoners on March 23.

As the authors of the statement note, in particular the policy of persecution of religious activists has gained wide scope after the appointment of Deputy Executive Secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party Mubariz Gurbanly to the post of Chairman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations.

“We strongly condemn the incarceration of Movsum Samedov, the leader of the Islamic Party, in the punishment cell for a long time. We believe he is punished absolutely unreasonably.

He is a man of high morality and he enjoys moral authority among the prisoners. We strongly demand that Samedov be released from the penalty cell and that they stop persecuting him even in prison,” said Elshan Hasanov, head of the Monitoring Center for Political Prisoners.

* Samedov was arrested along with a group of other activists of IPA in January 2011 on charges of attempting to seize power and illegal storage of weapons and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The Court has already started communication concerning his complaint. In March, he was imprisoned three times.

* The Monitoring Center for Political Prisoners was established by a group of former "prisoners of conscience" in October 2014. -06D--