Turan news agency, Azerbaijani Opposition
June 9 2017


Ethnic minority activist faces travel ban in Azerbaijan

[Armenian News note: the below is translated from the Russian edition of Turan]

The head of an ethnic minority centre in Azerbaijan has been barred
from travelling abroad in connection with an investigation into an
ethnic reporter's defection to Armenia.

Rafiq Calilov, the head of the Talis (Talish) culture centre, says
that he was not allowed to leave the country in late May because of a
travel ban imposed on him by the Prosecutor-General's Office.

The travel ban was imposed because Calilov is a witness in the case of
correspondent of Tolisi Sado (Tolyshi Sado, Voice of Talis) newspaper,
Sahin Mirzoyev, who defected to Armenia in February 2017. Armenia is
Baku's arch-foe due to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Calilov said that he had no plans to emigrate, but wanted to travel to
Dagestan, Russia for the wedding of a friend's son. He described the
travel ban as politically motivated and filed a complaint with the
Prosecutor-General's Office.

"I do not understand what is the point of not allowing me to travel
abroad. If I wanted to leave, I would have done that in 2014 when I
was in Europe. I am not going to leave Azerbaijan," Calilov said.

Turan said on 8 June that the editor of Tolisi Sado, Hilal Mammadov,
was interrogated at the Interior Ministry's organised crime department
in connection with the Sahin Mirzoyev case.

Hilal Mammadov, received a five-year prison sentence in September 2013
on charges of drug possession, high treason and incitement of hatred.
He was given a presidential pardon in 2016.

Tolisi Sado's previous editor, Novruzali Mammadov, died in a Baku
prison hospital in 2009, a year after he was sentenced to 10 years in
prison for high treason and spying for Iran.