Azerbaijani rapper associates his arrest with criticism of police

On June 22, in Azerbaijan, the Court of Appeal left rapper Elshan Teimurov under custody. The rapper was subjected to 60 days of administrative arrest. The young man denied the accusations of drug trafficking and disobedience to the police and said he was being prosecuted for performing a critical song, the rapper's father reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed by Gasham Teimurov, a father of the rapper, that Elshan Teimurov was detained on June 2.

Gasham Teimurov believes that his son was arrested on a far-fetched charge.

"My son is not a drug addict. After his detention, the police could not even explain the reasons. Initially, we were told that my son was detained because of a video in which Elshan was performing a song. Then, they said that a certain girl allegedly complained about Elshan. I asked for a phone number of the girl and said that I'll find out what the matter was ... Later, they changed the charge to 'disobedience to the police,' and, moreover, another charge of drug trafficking appeared. Elshan was arrested for two months. In fact, he was actually arrested because of his song describing how a policeman beat a mother of a fighter killed in Karabakh," the father of Elshan Teimurov said.

The Baku Court of Appeal (BCA) dismissed the complaint about the rapper's arrest.

Zibeida Sadygova, an advocate of Elshan Teimurov, expressed her dissatisfaction that "the court had not conducted an unbiased investigation into the case." In particular, the court refused to watch the video records from surveillance cameras in the 12th unit of the Sabunchu District Police Department and to question law enforcers who detained Elshan Teimurov," the advocate said.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 23, 2020 at 11:43 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.