Azeri activist arrested for a month for tearing down Turkish flag

Fuad Ismailov, an activist, has been arrested in Azerbaijan for a month on charges of disobeying the police. He was detained the day after he tore off the Turkish flag in a public place, said Fikret Djafarli, the head of the public association "Investigating Centre against Torture".

According to Mr Djafarli, Fuad Ismailov was detained on January 29. A day earlier, on January 28, Ismailov tore down a Turkish flag from the flagpole installed in front of a restaurant near the "Neftchilar" metro station in Baku.

On January 31, Djafarli managed to meet Ismailov at the police station. "I visited Fuad Ismailov in the morning. At that time, no charges had been brought against him. Fuad told me that he had been detained for cutting the rope that held the Turkish flag in front of the restaurant. He said that he deliberately did it in order to draw attention to the fact that some people are covering up their unscrupulous actions with flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey," Fikret Djafarli has explained.

According to his story, in the evening on January 31, it became known that Ismailov had been arrested for a month. "Fuad was found guilty under Article 535.1 (disobeying the lawful demands of the police) of the Code of Administrative Offenses. However, we don't know what it had been manifested with. The court session was held behind closed doors," Mr Djafarli has concluded.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 1, 2022 at 01:52 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.