Growth in number of arrests indicates scale of activists' persecutions in Azerbaijan

In Azerbaijan, administrative arrests are used to persecute activists and critics of the authorities. Compared with 2011, in 2018 the number of such arrests has grown by more than 2.5 times, says the report prepared by the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI).

The report "Analysis of the legislation on administrative arrests and the situation with ill-treatment (in places of detention)" presents statistics of administrative arrests in 2018 and compares these data with that of 2011.

The authors note that there were 2.56 times more administrative arrests, namely, 8449 in 2018 against 3299 in 2011. Over the last two years, in most cases, people were detained under the article on disobeying the police, the report says. According to IDI, at least 78 of the 2018 administrative arrests were politically motivated.

The report indicates the spread of the practice, when citizens are taken without any reason to the police stations, and then brought to the court, which rules an administrative arrest, based solely on policemen's testimonies.

The IDI also draws attention to the fact that those administratively arrested are held in conditions that fail to meet international standards.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 22, 2019 at 05:18 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.