18:00, 23 December 2011

Residents of the settlement of Nardaran, Azerbaijan, report arrests of believers

In the settlement of Nardaran, Baku, believers are regularly arrested: at night policemen come, without any grounds put them into cars and drive them away to police departments, local residents report.

Residents of Nardaran state that most of the detainees are incriminated using drugs though they "do not even smoke cigarettes".

"Elchin Guseinaliev who had returned from a hajj was taken right from in his house. On December, 17, Mashtag Dilaver Yakshibekov was arrested: they allegedly found 47 gram drugs in his house, SalamNews quotes Natik Kerimov, Chairman of the Council of Aksakals of Nardaran. - They wanted to arrest one more person in Nardaran, Gaji Kyamran. Therefore a group of 10 or 15 policemen came to him but he was out".

Local residents declare their readiness to come out for an action of protest calling all these events "arbitrary rule". "If they do not stop it we will come out by all means and hold our actions. Everything must be within the law", "Islam in CIS" quotes a local resident.