Authorities forbid ICRC employees to meet Mukhtarly

Afghan Mukhtarly is kept at Baku SIZO-1 (pre-trial prison), Elchin Sadygov, his advocate, has found out. He said that the journalist showed traces of beatings at the court session.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Afghan Mukhtarly, an Azerbaijani journalist, is under arrest in Baku after he was kidnapped in Georgia. According to his story, he was beaten up during the kidnapping. However, the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Azerbaijan refuted his words.

Meanwhile, the advocate claims that at the court session, when Afghan's freedom restriction measure was decided, he showed traces of beatings to the judge.

Ogtay Gyulyalyev, the head of the Public Alliance "Azerbaijan Without Political Prisoners", said that today, the SIZO staff has not allowed employees of the Baku office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit Mukhtarly.

"They were told that Afghan was not there; this suggests two versions: either they hide his whereabouts, or they would not let any foreigners to him until his traumas get healed," he said.

Khalid Agaliev, a member of the Institute of Media Rights, is sure that Mukhtarly's arrest has to do with his journalistic investigations of corruption and lawlessness.

Elshan Gasanov, the head of the Monitoring Centre for Political Prisoners, has added that Mukhtarly had actively protested against the referendum on amendments to the Constitution, held in September 2016 in Azerbaijan.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.