HRW condemns non-admission of Georgy Gogiya to Azerbaijan

The international organization "Human Rights Watch" (HRW) has condemned the refusal of the authorities of Azerbaijan to let the rights defender Georgy Gogiya to the country. This is the first case of refusal to let a HRW's representative to Azerbaijan, the organization has emphasized.

Let us remind you that Gogiya was detained at Baku airport on March 30 at about 1:30 p.m. His passport was taken away; and he was kept for more than 24 hours in the neutral area of the airport, and sent back to Tbilisi, from where he arrived, in the evening on March 31.

Without explaining the reasons, Azerbaijani authorities detained Gogiya for 31 hours, after he arrived in the country with the aim to take part in court sessions on the cases of his local colleagues Intigam Aliev and Rasul Jafarov, says the statement of the HRW, received today by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"The ban on Gogiya's entry indicates how far the suppression of human rights in Azerbaijan has reached. They have done so much that they now fear that someone will witness all that. This is the first ban on entry into the country of a HRW's representative," said Hugh Williamson, the director of the HRW for Europe and Central Asia.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.