Source: Freedom House
Intigam Aliyev’s health is in danger, US-based democracy promotion NGO
Freedom House
said on May 27, 2015. Aliyev, a prominent Azerbaijani human rights lawyer, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison on charges of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, and embezzlement.
“It is inhumane and cruel for Azerbaijani authorities to deny medical care to Aliyev, a human rights lawyer who was sentenced on trumped-up charges and while in prison has developed a spine condition that prevents him from normal movement and causes him tremendous pain,” said Robert Herman, Freedom House Vice President for Programs.
“The shameful treatment of Aliyev is akin to the brutality inflicted on Sergei Magnitsky in Russia in 2009. We urge Azerbaijani authorities to provide Aliyev with immediate medical assistance and release him, along with all other political prisoners, who should never have gone to prison in the first place.”
Aliyev had prepared and referred more than 200 cases of political rights violations in Azerbaijan to the European Court of Human Rights from 1998 to 2014. The charges against him were widely denounced as trumped-up by human rights groups.
Magnitskiy was a Russian lawyer who died in custody in November 2009. Magnitskiy was jailed on false charges after uncovering a large-scale theft scheme from the Russian state involving Russian officials.
