Azerbaijan: student sacked for publication on corruption

Elmin Badalov, editor of the "Polygon" information agency, was dismissed from his 4th year of the Petro-Mechanical Department of the Azerbaijani State Oil Academy (ASOA). He believes that he was sacked for political reasons. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Badalov himself told about it on February 8 at a press conference held at the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS).

According to his version, on November 12 last year he published an article in the website "Polygon" under the title "Report from Oil Academy", telling about bribery at this higher school spread among teachers and employees.

In his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent he explained that on the basis of his personal observations and other students' evidences he wrote about facts of extorting money from students of his and other departments of the ASOA for passing examinations and tests. According to his story, there are fixed tariffs for tests and marks at examinations, which vary within the range of 70-150 manats (85-180 US dollars). "My article was not aimed against someone personally, I just wanted to draw attention to corruption problems in education in general," said Badalov.

As to particular proofs, according to his story, "these facts are universally known, and nobody even rejects them."

"After the publication I was called by Gasym Mamedov, the dean of our department, who started abusing me. One of the division heads was also in the room and supported the dean," Elmin Badalov continued.

Later, as he asserts, they deliberately put unsatisfactory marks for three examinations at the winter session and rejected his course work. Then, the Rector's order was issued to dismiss him for poor results in study.

Moreover, according to his story, the department managers started also pressing other students which Badalov had quoted in his article, persuading them to refute their words.

It proved impossible to contact the dean of the Petro-Mechanical Department of the ASOA Gasym Mamedov. The woman who picked up the phone at the dean's office said that "the dean was at the Vice-Rector's and generally very busy on that day."

According to Elnur Mamedov, who represented the IRFS, the ASOA leaders demonstrated their biased attitude to Badalov.