20:35, 7 January 2020

Azerbaijani human rights defender Ogtai Gyulyalyev feels better

Azerbaijani human rights defender Ogtai Gyulyalyev. Screenshot of the video at the Elçi YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag5cMhW5rG4

Azerbaijani human rights defender Ogtai Gyulyalyev, who fell into a coma after a road traffic accident in Baku, began to understand what was happening around him, his spouse reported.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 29, 2019, Ogtai Gyulyalyev, the head of the public alliance "Azerbaijan without Political Prisoners", was hit by a car after a press conference at which he spoke about a plan of the campaign against torture.

"He hears conversations around him. He simply ... is not able to react to what he heard," said Firuza Gyulyalyeva, a wife of the human rights defender, as quoted by the agency "Turan".

Ogtai Gyulyalyev, who continues to stay at a clinic in Istanbul, is already able to take food without other people's help, the "Meydan" online TV Chanel reports.

Oppositionists, human rights defenders, and advocates suggested that a car driver hit Ogtai Gyulyalyev intentionally. The platform of civil solidarity, uniting about 35 human rights organizations from different countries, also regarded the road traffic accident as an assassination attempt on Ogtai Gyulyalyev and called for an international investigation.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 7, 2020 at 10:58 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.