Azerbaijan: nine policemen injured at dispersal of protest action

On December 22, an action of forced migrants from Jabrayil District grew into riots; and nine policemen suffered at dispersal thereof.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Jabrayil District, in fact controlled by Nagorno-Karabakh, is treated by Azerbaijan as its occupied territory. The forced migrants from this district were massively accommodated in tent camps located in the Bilasuvar District of Azerbaijan; later, the construction of housing estates for them was launched.

On December 22, Bilasuvar held a protest action of residents of one of such estates, who demanded to release them from paying for electricity, says a joint statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Azerbaijan.

According to the agencies, policemen were sent to the venue. "Protesters did not obey the law enforcers and inflicted various injuries to nine policemen and broke windows of a police car with stones and wooden sticks," the "Interfax-Azerbaijan" quotes the above statement.

As a result, three policemen were hospitalized; the rest of the injured law enforcers received the necessary medical care. The statement fails to indicate how many protesters suffered from policemen's actions, but names the three detained "most active" of them – Djalal Guliev, Ilkin Iskenderov and Gyulaga Almamedov.

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