Believers tortured in Azerbaijani prisons, activists report

Participants of the hearings held in Baku reported that in prisons, believers were subjected to torture and inhuman treatment. According to the activists, many political prisoners suffer from serious diseases, but do not receive qualified medical care.

On May 10, at the office of the Association of Intellectuals of Azerbaijan, the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Believers in Prisoners (CPRBP) held the hearings on the topic "Repressions and torture against political prisoners", the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

Eldaniz Guliev, the co-chairman of the CPRBP, considers the treatment of believers in prisons as "terrifying."

"People are beaten with rubber truncheons, tortured with electric current, beaten on their heels, and hung on a height ... One prisoner was beaten and hung by his legs just because he had asked a warder for medicine," Eldaniz Guliev said.

"Believers are subjected to disciplinary punishments under various pretexts. They are placed to punishment cells and deprived of phone conversations and visits of their relatives. And the worst thing is that they are not provided with high-quality medical care. The most flagrant case is the detention in custody of paralyzed Abulfaz Bunyadov," reported Elchin Gasymov, the deputy chairman of the movement "Muslim Unity".

According to him, there are attempts to present Muslim believers as a threat to society.

"They try to humiliate believers and force them to renounce their beliefs," noted Mekhpara Samedova, a wife of Movsum Samedov, the leader of the "Islamic Party of Azerbaijan", kept in the Gobustan prison.

Rovshan Akhmedli, the co-chairman of the CPRBP, urged the society not to remain indifferent to arbitrariness against believers imprisoned for political reasons.