"Musavat" activists state illegal treatment by Russian power agents who detained them in Makhachkala

After their return to Baku, Gyulyaga Aslanly, the deputy head of the "Musavat" Party, Arif Gadjily, the head of the party's office, and Emil Salamoglu, a correspondent of the newspaper "Eni Musavat", who had been detained on March 10 in Makhachkala by Russian policemen, have declared the illegality of their detention and treated the incident as a "de facto deportation".

Emil Salamoglu told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that they were going by the Baku-Kiev train to the Crimea and were exposed to thorough scrutiny already at the Azerbaijani-Russian border. According to his story, the police asked the detainees about the reasons for their trip to the Crimea.

Arif Gadjily has noted that after consultations within the "Musavat" Party they will decide whether to address the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in connection with the violation of the rights of party members.

When asked whether Gadjily and Aslanly were still going to visit the Crimea, they said that the issue was on their agenda.

Emin Guseinov, an Azerbaijani human rights activist and the director of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), said that the rights of Azerbaijani citizens had been seriously violated in Russia. However, in his opinion, the incident will have no impact on the Azerbaijani-Russian relations.