Human rights activists of Azerbaijan are worried with worsening health condition of hunger-striking inmates

On the eleventh day of the hunger-strike, started in Azerbaijan by life-sentenced inmates of the Gobustan prison, the health condition of some of them - Giorgiy Geladze, Shakir Rzakhanov, Ali Guliev and Bakhtiyar Dzhafarov who sewed up his mouth - got rapidly aggravated, and they were taken to the medical unit of the prison. According to the news of the Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan that referred to the inmates themselves, this measure was related not only with aggravation of their health, but also with a desire to isolate them as the most active participants of the action of protest.

The remaining hunger-strikers are under pressure. For instance, the life-sentenced Rauf Eivazov was severely beaten. Ilgar Allakhverdiev agreed to stop the hunger strike due to bad health condition. The remaining inmates continue their protest action.

Note that Sagadat Agayev, the head of the Gobustan prison, makes no comment to the hunger strike information, and the Chief Department of Enforcement of Court Decisions (GUISR) of the Ministry of Justice is resolutely denying the fact of the hunger-strike. Colonel of Justice Rafik Ramazanov, the head of the department of corrective works and social protection of the GUISR of the Ministry of Justice, told repeatedly that all the news about the hunger strike in the Gobustan prison have no grounds.

We remind you that, according to some sources, on June 26 life-sentenced inmates of the Gobustan prison started a protest hunger-strike. The prisoners demand that their sentences be revised and earlier death penalties be replaced by 15 years of imprisonment and not life sentences, which did not exist in the legislation as of the moment of committing their crimes. The same "15 years" problem refers also to those life-sentenced criminals of Azerbaijan, who committed their crimes before and were convicted after cancellation of death penalty.