ECtHR recognizes violation of Azerbaijani journalist Ganimat Zakhid’s rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) obliged the Azerbaijan’s authorities to pay compensation of 8500 euros to Ganimat Zaidov, an editor of the Azerbaijani opposition newspaper “Azadlig”, well-known under the pseudonym of Ganimat Zakhid.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that Ganimat Zakhid was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to four years of imprisonment on the charge of hooliganism. In 2011, he had to take his family out of the country “because of threats.”

The journalist’s complaint referred to the seizure and destruction of the manuscript, which he wrote during the preliminary detention in a case on hooliganism.

After his release from prison in 2010, Ganimat Zakhid went abroad and received political asylum in France, from where he runs the “Turan TV” satellite TV Channel. The journalist said that he described in his manuscripts the difficult conditions of detention in the Baku SIZO (pre-trial prison). “Cells were extremely small, the rooms were in a dilapidated state, not ventilated, it was cold there in winter, hot in summer. Prisoners were treated with brutality. I described all that in my manuscripts, but they were taken away from me ... But after my release, I wrote the book ‘Death Corps’,” Ganimat Zakhid said.

He noted that under pressure from human rights defenders and journalists, the above-mentioned SIZO was closed in 2009, and the building was demolished, and a new one was built instead.