Nightmare or moral victory of Leyla Yunus

The night arrest of the human rights defenders Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus can be called another demonstration of lawlessness and arbitrariness.

Once they were removed from the plane to Paris via Doha, despite crossing the border control, they were subjected to humiliating three-hour check up to underwear. Then the detainees were brought to their flat without explanation or charges to conduct a search.

The warrant was not shown to Leyla and Arif Yunus, but was shown to their lawyer, Khalid Baghirov. On the demand by Yunus to show this document, the investigator of the Prosecutor General Lemberansky refused. There was long argument about how many investigators and how many representatives of Yunus would enter the apartment. That led to a second hypertensive crisis at Arif Yunus for the last four days.

The investigators decided that Arif Yunus was faking illness and shut him down in the stairwell, having expelled 7-8 press journalists and people close to Leyla Yunus into the street. Apparently, law enforcement seriously believed that Arif was faking illness and was going to escape. These actions led to a nervous breakdown at Leyla Yunus, who refused to let investigators into the apartment. After the ambulance took Arif to intensive care, the investigators again offered Leyla Yunus to conduct a search, which she gave a flat refusal.

This confrontation lasted all night, the investigator Lemberansky periodically talking with someone on the phone, reporting the situation. At seven o'clock the Yasamal district police chief İsmail Asadov arrived. Leyla Yunus was given an ultimatum: either she would open the door or they would break it. Leyla Yunus said let them break it. She motivated her refusal with "inhuman" attitude towards her and her husband. She was also offended by the actions of the police officer who would not let her go to a toilet in the apartment of a neighbor (!).

"That's the man, the officer stood by and watched as I was sitting on the toilet, and then you talk about the law!" said the outraged human rights activist. On the calls by journalists and colleagues of Yunus to police to behave decently, the police chief responded quite originally.

"You do not know the operational rules and she can do something with her when locked in the closet , so our staff should always be close and not let that happen ," he said.

After much wrangling and mutual claims, the investigators decided not to break down the door and invited Yunus to give evidence to the prosecutor.

Having not slept all night, Leyla Yunus together with her lawyer and another accompanying person went for questioning at 7:00 am, where she still was at 14 o'clock.

Note that the investigators and prosecutors did not explain on what basis they wanted to conduct a search, or who authorized it, or what was the guilt of Leyla and Arif Yunus, or what they are suspected of.

Earlier, MNS arrested the journalist Rauf Mirkadirov, accusing him of spying for Armenia. He allegedly committed this “crime” in 2008-2009, giving to Armenians some documents at activities undertaken by the Institute of Peace and Democracy, which is headed by Yunus.

 Therefore, with high probability we can assume that Leyla and Arif Yunus will be accused of complicity in this "crime".

Note also that the Western diplomats accompanying Leila and Arif Yunus at the airport made several calls to the presidential administration and spoke with senior officials, and in particular, Novruz Mammadov . However, on Tuesday morning the representative of Novruz Mamedov told Turan that there was nothing like this. – 02B -