After feeling worse, Elchin Mamed stops his hunger strike in colony

Elchin Mamed, an Azerbaijani journalist and human rights defender, has stopped his hunger strike in the colony due to a sharp deterioration in his health, his relatives have informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 3, Elchin Mamed went on a hunger strike demanding his release. After on May 10, human rights defenders demanded to pardon him, Mamed stopped his hunger strike in the colony. On June 27, on the eve of consideration by the courts of his applications on the conditional early relief (CER), he resumed his hunger strike.

On July 7, Mamed was forced to end his hunger strike due to a sharp deterioration in his health, Elchin Gasanzade, a deputy chairman of the NGO "Legal Enlightenment of Sumgait Youth", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today.

"On the 11th day of his hunger strike, Elchin Mamed felt bad and stopped it. However, he insists on his release. Elchin is very weak; he even refused to take part on July 13 in the consideration of his cassation complaint at the Supreme Court (SC) against the dismissal of his CER petition, submitted after he had served a third of his prison term," Mr Gasanzade has explained.

Rakhilya Mamedova, Elchin's mother, has also confirmed that her son had ended his hunger strike. "He has many chronic diseases; nevertheless, he spent eleven days on his hunger strike. This completely crippled his health," she told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 9, 2022 at 01:15 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.