Blogger who criticized Azerbaijani authorities deprived of Russian citizenship

Elvin Isaev, 39, a video blogger who criticized Azerbaijani authorities, has been stripped of Russian citizenship and will be deported from the country, a court in Saint Petersburg has ruled. His wife has urged Russian President Putin to interfere in the case.

According to the police, Isaev's Russian passport has been found invalid.

According to the "Fontanka", the blogger received his first Russian passport in 2001 in North Ossetia; and in 2014, he replaced it for a new one. In recent years, Isaev lived in Saint Petersburg with his wife, who is a local resident, and two minor sons.

Now, the blogger is kept at the Migrants' Temporary Detention Centre in the Leningrad Region, awaiting his deportation to Baku, the "Reuters" reports.

The actions against Isaev are organized by the Azerbaijani authorities, whom he criticized in his blog, his wife, Svetlana Isaeva, is sure.

The report by the Institute for Democratic Initiatives states that arrests are used in Azerbaijan to persecute activists and critics of the authorities. In 2018, as compared to 2011, the number of arrests increased by more than 2.5 times – from 3299 to 8449 cases.