08:15, 21 August 2018

Rights defender Gyulyalyev could leave Azerbaijan

Ogtai Gyulyalyev. Photo: Turkhan Kerimov, RFE/RL, http://www.radioazadlyg.org/a/26639014.html

Ogtai Gyulyalyev, the coordinator of the Centre for Protecting Political Prisoners, has left Azerbaijan for Georgia after a six-year ban on leaving the country.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in autumn of 2016, the criminal case, brought against Gyulyalyev in 2012 for his alleged calls for unrests, was closed. The ban on his departure from the country was lifted, but officials still refused to give a foreign passport to him. However, in January 2018, he received his foreign passport.

Ogtai Gyulyalyev is fighting for the release of innocently convicted persons and termination of persecutions of dissidents in Azerbaijan. He was repeatedly persecuted for his human rights activities.

"After more than six years of the ban, I was allowed to leave Azerbaijan," Gyulyalyev said. According to his story, his trip abroad "has to do with the issues of democratization of Azerbaijan."

Elchin Gasanov, a member of the Committee for the Protection of Civil Society, has noted that dozens of Azerbaijani journalists and activists are still under a ban of leaving the country.

A ban on going abroad is practiced in Azerbaijan as a measure to press rights defenders and journalists who criticize the authorities.

Shakhveled Chobanoglu, a journalist who cooperated with the Azerbaijani Service of Radio Liberty, was also banned from leaving the country three years ago, when an investigation against the bureau of the radio in Baku began.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 20, 2018 at 10:33 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Faik Medjid

Source: CK correspondent