Azerbaijani comedian Idrak Mirzalizade claims being threatened and beaten after a joke about xenophobes

Calls for reprisals against ethnic Azeri Idrak Mirzalizade following his public joke about xenophobes led to his beating in Moscow. The joke was misunderstood, the comedian claims.

On June 23, the stand-up comedian was attacked in Moscow, the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent has been informed by Sergey Zabyrin, an artist’s manager. “Two attackers chased him from the place of his performance and hit him to his head from behind,” Sergey Zabyrin reported.

The attack was preceded by Idrak Mirzalizade’s performance in the comedy show “Razgony” on YouTube, Sergei Zabyrin added. In the show, the comedian sneered at the prejudices of people who refused to rent apartments to natives of the Caucasus and other “non-Russians,” since they had biased attitude to them. According to Idrak Mirzalizade, finally, he rented the apartment from ethnic Armenians, despite his Azeri origin, while earlier, the same apartment was rented by Russians, who left a “crumpled mattress” that Idrak and his brother had to throw away.

The joke was a ridicule of “judgments about the whole people on just one unpleasant fact,” Idrak Mirzalizade explained.