Resident of Nakhichevan complains of lawlessness of the NAR's MIA

Nadir Mamedov, a resident of Nakhichevan, said that he was forced to leave the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR) because of police pressure. This statement was made at a press conference on February 21 in Baku in the office of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS). The NAR's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) denied putting any pressure on Mamedov.

"In Nakhichevan, there's a threat to my safety; and the threat comes personally from the MIA head Akhmed Akhmedov," said Mamedov.

He explained that the reason of the pressure was in the fact that at the elections to the regional parliament on November 7, 2010, he was an observer from the candidate from the opposition party "Umid" (Hope) Faiz Aliev.

Mr Mamedov has noted that already then he was pressed to refrain from supporting the oppositionist. He is engaged in freight transportation by his own automobile; and soon after the elections, according to his story, he became a subject of picky attention of traffic police.

He told local rights defenders about it; and they posted the information on the Internet.

After that, as Mamedov reports, on February 15 he was summoned to the NAR's MIA, where Minister Ahmed Akhmedov insulted him and struck several blows on him. "Finally Akhmedov said that if, after leaving the MIA, I strike rights defender Elman Abbasov, they would leave me alone. Otherwise, as the minister warned, I'd better leave the NAR. But how can I blow the man, who spoke in my defence? I had no choice but to come to Baku. But I can't stay for long here. My family is in Nakhichevan, but I can't go back there, as policemen threatened that if I continue complaining and appear in the media, I'd have problems," he said.

He added that he was going to seek punishment of the head of the NAR's MIA and the traffic policemen, who, in his opinion, unreasonably stopped and fined him.

He also informed the Azerbaijani Committee against Torture about the pressure on him. In this regard, Elchin Bekhbudov, head of the Committee applied to the Azerbaijani MIA with a request to hold investigation.

In her turn, Malakhat Nasibova, head of the NAR's Regional Resource Centre of NGOs and Democracy Development, has confirmed that Mamedov was repeatedly pressed by the traffic police; and on February 15 he was summoned to the local MIA and after that complained of physical pressure.

However, the NAR's MIA denies it. "We don't know this person; and there's no reason in what he says," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by phone by some Ministry official who refused to name himself.