Azerbaijani Opposition Activist Gets One Year In Prison
December 01, 2020 15:27 GMT
• By RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service
Azerbaijani oppositionist Mahammad Imanli (file photo)
BAKU -- A member of the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXCP),
Mahammad Imanli, has been sentenced to one year in prison for breaking
coronavirus measures, a charge he rejects as false, calling it politically
motivated.
On December 1, Judge Mirheydar Zeynalov of the Sabuncu district court in Baku
found Imanli guilty of failing to comply with coronavirus precautions and
"spreading the disease."
Imanli rejected the court's findings saying he was sentenced "only because I am
a member of the AXCP."
A day earlier, a prosecutor at the trial asked the judge to sentence Imanli to
18 months in prison.
Imanli has insisted that a police statement noting he was detained on July 20
was false.
According to him and his lawyers, he was detained on July 16 and kept in a
police station for four days, during which time he was interrogated regarding
his participation in unsanctioned rallies in Baku in support of the country’s
armed forces amid an escalation of military tensions with neighboring Armenia.
Imanli is one of almost 50 AXCP members arrested in July after the rallies in
support of the Azerbaijani Army.
Investigators have said that, during the unsanctioned rallies in mid-July, AXCP
activists clashed with police injuring some of them, upended private vehicles,
and damaged parliament.
Many of the activists who were detained were charged with damaging private
property, attacking law enforcement officers, and disrupting public order.
Dozens of AXCP members have been arrested, and some imprisoned, in recent years
on what their supporters have called trumped-up charges.
Opponents of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Western countries, and
international human rights groups say his government has persistently persecuted
critics, political foes, independent media outlets, and civic activists.
Aliyev denies any rights abuses. He took power in 2003 shortly before the death
of his father, Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and communist-era leader who
had ruled Azerbaijan since 1993.