Fears for Detained Azerbaijani Rights Defender
Taleh Khasmammadov reportedly in grave condition after suicide bid.
Fears for Detained Azerbaijani Rights Defender
Taleh Khasmammadov reportedly in grave condition after suicide bid.
Relatives of detained human rights defender Taleh Khasmammadov say he is in critical condition after an apparent suicide attempt in an Azerbaijani prison.
On February 26, Taleh Khasmammadov was given a three-month custody order by a court in Goychay in central Azerbaijan pending a trial on charges of disorderly behaviour (termed “hooliganism” in the law). He had been detained two days earlier after an incident in which, according to his mother Gulbuta, he was accosted by a stranger who then fell on the ground and feigned injury as waiting police swooped. (See our story Azerbaijan: Arrests Continue Ahead of Euro-Games.)
Gulbuta Khasmammadova said her son “cut his veins” on March 15 while in a pretrial detention centre in the city of Ganja. She told IWPR she found this out while trying to track down his whereabouts, as the authorities had failed to inform his family and defence lawyer of where he was sent after the custody hearing.
“In order to find out, I went to the Goychay district police department, where I was told Taleh was being held in the Ganja investigative detention unit. I wasn’t allowed to see him,” she said. “I was told in Ganja that Taleh had been sent to a treatment centre in Baku.”
On March 15, Khasmammadov’s mother managed to get into the prison hospital where he was being treated.
“Taleh was badly treated after his arrest. He told me he wasn’t allowed to call home or contact a lawyer. In the 20 days he was held under arrest, he wasn’t allowed to go to the bathhouse, nor did [prison authorities] accept the food and clothing he was sent from home,” she said.
After being held in a cell with detainees who appeared to be mentally unstable, Khasmammadov went on hunger strike for ten days.
“During that period, he was not put under medical observation. In the end, in an act of protest against the lawless system, he cut his veins,” Khasmammadova said. “He has lost an awful lot of blood, and he’s been badly weakened by the hunger strike,” she said, adding that he complained of a kidney infection caused by the dampness of his cell, and that prison doctors had told her they would be treating this.
Officials have confirmed that Khasmammadov is in a hospital facility. The deputy head of the justice ministry’s medical department, Iftikhar Qurbanov, told the Turan news agency that Khasmammadov was in hospital but denied both that he had harmed himself and that he had been on hunger strike.”
Oqtay Gulaliyev of the campaign group Azerbaijan Without Political Prisoners says he received a letter from Khasmammadov detailing the unlawful way he had been treated in detention, point by point.
Gulaliyev argues that Khasmammadov’s mistreatment is further proof that he was arrested for political reasons.
“They wanted to intimidate him because they’ve realised they won’t be able to divert him from his chosen path simply by arresting him,” Gulaliyev said, adding that when Khasmammadov was released from his last spell in prison in December, he immediately returned to his work defending the rights of people in and around Goychay.
Azer Ismayil, an adviser to the head of the opposition party Musavat, says Khasmammadov is the victim of a “deliberate torture mechanism”.
“The entire public and political sphere, and international organisations too, must pay attention to what has happened to Taleh Khasmammadov,” he said. “They must intervene in this lawless situation.”
Afgan Mukhtarli is an Azerbaijani journalist living abroad.
