The journalist Zamin Haji was summoned to the Baku city police station on November 28th.
The journalist reported this information on on his personal Facebook page.
“Once again, I’ve been summoned to the Baku city police station. This is already the third time in the past year and a half, I have to be there at 5 o’clock today. They say, Mr. Nazim, the head of the investigative department, wants to meet with you. “Why does he want to meet?” – There’s only one answer: “Come, and you’ll see” – it’s that sort of situation. It’s pointless to ask them for an official notification – if they want, they’ll take you right off the street. Though I guess I could be at least thankful for the civilized tone. . .?
But all the same, these summons must mean something. To the esteemed masters of the ‘qorotdel’ (municipal police station) , my surname isn’t Chovdarov, I’ve never worked in the Ministry of National Security or the Ministry of Communications, I don’t have an offshore account, I quit smoking already three years ago, I’m far from having any harmful habits, and, as a rule, I run about 170 km a month. (This last bit I write also for our busy bees, since I don’t plan to sew my pockets shut while I’m there and, if worse comes to worse, you should know the truth). And so, why won’t you give me peace? What are you getting at?”
The lawyer Elchin Sadıqov later announced that the journalist was summoned to the police because of his Facebook status from November 23:
“Nobody has yet been convicted for the terrorist attacks that have taken place in Azerbaijan over the past 26 years.
A short list of these events from memory:
January 20;
Khojaly;
the helicopter terror of November 20;
the murder of
Ziya Bunyadov
;
the murder of
Rail Rzayev
, commander of the Air Defense Forces;
the murder of the writer and journalist
Rafiq Taghi
;
and many others.
How can we speak of stability, about state-building in a country where crime has gone unpunished?”
Elchin Sadıqov also announced that Nazim Ismayilov, head of the investigations department in the Baku city police department, and one other employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had a ‘preemptive’ talk with the journalist.
“He was advised not to write things like this any more”, noted the lawyer.
We remind our readers that, according to research from Reporters Without Borders, the situation pertaining to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Azerbaijan have been evaluated as “extremely serious”. Azerbaijan is in 163
rd
place in the list of 180 countries, whereas its closest neighbors are in 64
th
(Georgia) and 74
th
(Armenia).
