MIA of Azerbaijan accuses opposition of politicizing road accident in Khudat

The Azerbaijan's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) believes that the opposition is politicizing the traffic accident that occurred on May 9 in the city of Khudat, located in the north of the country and incites the local population for illegal actions. The opposition, in its turn, accuses the authorities of favouring law violators.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 9 the car of the commander of the military unit of frontier troops in Khudat, deployed in the north of Azerbaijan, collided with a VAZ-2104 of local resident Rafiq Guseinov. Information was spread among the locals that the men in military uniform who got out of the commander's car spoke rudely with the driver, despite the fact that women and children were in his car.

On that very day, the inhabitants of the city outraged with the behaviour of the militaries organized a march that ended near the building of local police. Elchin Guliev, Commander of Frontier Troops, came to the city and held talks with the protesters.

"Local functionaries of some radical oppositional parties, while remaining true to their seditious traditions, once again tried to politicize a usual motor crash, and artificially create tension and confrontation in the region," says the today's official press release of the MIA of Azerbaijan.

The attempt to hold a protest was stopped, and some of its organizers, including Geibat Amrakh, the head of the Khachmaz district organization of the "Musavat" Party, and the party members Fikret Aliev, Aladdin Mirzoev, as well as a local Nusrat Garaev, were detained, the MIA reports.

A protocol has been drawn up against them of breaking Article 298.2 (violation of the rules of organizing and holding demonstrations) of the Administrative Code of Azerbaijan; and each of the detainees was sentenced by the district court to 10 days of administrative arrest.

The above MIA's report did not specify the position and rank of the frontier guard, who took part in the road accident. However, earlier Guliev said that the car of the Khudat Chief of the Frontier Unit, Colonel Rovshan Safarov was a party of the road accident.

"The arrested members of the 'Musavat' Party have no relation to organizing the protest action. They were not even present at the road accident. Geibat Amrakh just shared the news about Khudat on the Facebook. He just reported about what was happening, but didn't organize the action," Gyulyaga Aslanly, Deputy Chairman of the "Musavat" Party, said in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to Aslanly, detentions of activists in the Khachmaz District continue. He said that today four more activists of "Musavat" have been detained and released several hours later.