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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia | |
| Court in Baku refuses to release activist Babaev | |
| 2023-04-18 | |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [KavkazUzel] The court did not satisfy the request of the defense to transfer under house arrest a member of the Azerbaijani movement "Muslim Unity"
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Samir Babayev, a member of the Muslim Unity Movement (DME), was detained on December 2, 2022. A day earlier, another member of the movement, Nijat Aliyev, was detained. Both were arrested on charges of drug trafficking. The DME called the accusations far-fetched , considering the persecution of activists as a new round of pressure on the opposition movement. Today, a preparatory hearing on the case of Samir Babayev was held at the Baku Grave Crimes Court. His lawyer Fariz Namazli filed a motion to transfer Babayev to house arrest, explaining that there were no grounds for keeping his client in custody. "The investigation has been completed, the evidence has been collected. He does not plead guilty. He claims that the drug was planted in his pocket and insists on an acquittal. He is not going to evade the trial," Meydan TV quoted the lawyer as saying. In addition, the lawyer filed a petition for the return of the car, which he drove, to the Babayev family. The lawyer expressed the opinion that the car was irrelevant to the case, since nothing was found in the car during a search. Samir Babayev supported both motions of his lawyer. However, the panel of judges did not satisfy the petition for his transfer to house arrest, and left the petition for the return of the car without consideration, the newspaper writes. Recall that in February, the Union for Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan published an updated list of political prisoners, which included the names of 93 people . The previous list compiled by human rights activists in November 2022 included 100 names. The updated list of political prisoners included 12 members of the Muslim Unity movement. The vector of political repression in Azerbaijan has shifted from pro-Western activists to members of the Muslim Unity, human rights activists said. "All these people were arrested under the same article on drug trafficking on a large scale. The authorities have been bringing such a standard accusation against believers for many years. This category is not always educated people, as a rule, from the provinces or the periphery of large cities. They have little public are known, and therefore the authorities label them as "drug dealers," said Elshan Hasanov, one of the coordinators of the Union for the Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan, in particular. On January 25, 2017, the leader of the Muslim Unity movement, Taleh Bagirzade, and 17 of his supporters were sentenced to terms of 10 to 20 years on charges of organizing riots after a security operation in November 2015, which resulted in the death of seven people, including two policemen, said the reference of the "Caucasian Knot" "Nardaran." The defendants complained of torture and pleaded not guilty. Azerbaijani human rights activists recognized the defendants in the Nardaran case as political prisoners. Subsequently, some of the convicts were released  on pardon and the end of their term. | |
| Posted by:badanov |