PPFA activist Zamin Salayev on hunger strike for 21 days

Baku/28.02.23/Turan: The condition of Zamin Salayev, chairman of the Salyan district organization of the Party of People's Front of Azerbaijan (PPFA), who has been on hunger strike for 21 days, is grave.

The activist is currently held in Baku pre-trial detention centre No 1 and is protesting against trumped-up charges of hooliganism and assaulting a man.

Family members told Turan's correspondent that Zamin is set to go on a dry hunger strike in the near future.

"He is still being kept in a general cell despite the hunger strike. There is no medical supervision. He has lost 20 kilograms in weight. Neither the ombudsman nor the medical department of the pre-trial detention facility are interested in him," said a family member of Salayev who wished to remain anonymous.

Lawyer Nemat Kerimli said on 24 February that Zamin Salayev had serious health problems and was bleeding.  "Meetings with his family and relatives have been banned," the lawyer said.

On 8 February, the Garadagh district court in Baku decided to detain Zamin Salayev for three months. A criminal case was opened against him under Article 221.3 of the Criminal Code (hooliganism - the use of force against the victim with weapons or objects used as weapons). He faces up to five years of imprisonment.

Zamin Salayev stated in court that the accusation brought against him was false, he had been slandered. "I did not attack anyone, on the contrary, I was defending myself from an attack. When I got out of a taxi in the Lokbatan district of Baku, I was insulted by an unknown man and rushed out with a knife. I tried to defend myself and run away from the scene, pushing my attacker away. Immediately after that I was stopped by police officers in plain clothes and taken to the Garadagh district police department, accompanied by four police cars," Salayev told a judge of the Baku Court of Appeal on 20 February. However, the court did not satisfy his complaint and left him under arrest. -03-