Lawyer Denied Meeting with Arrested Blogger
February 01, 2016
Lawyer Shahla Humbatova’s request to meet with her client, blogger Khalid Khanlarov, has been denied. Khanlarov was sentenced to 25 days in administrative detention on charges of resisting the police on January 23, 2016. The lawyer reported that she was told by the Interior Ministry’s Administrative Detention Center for Public Order Offenders that her meeting was impossible due to ‘disinfection work in the detention center’.
“I told the authorized representatives of the Interior Ministry’s Administrative Detention Center for Public Order Offenders that I wanted to meet with my client, Khalid Khanlarov, and presented the documents prescribed by lawa. However, after an hour-long wait, they told me that permission had been denied. I insisted on seeing him for at least 5 minutes, but they still refused. I suspect that they put pressure on Khalid, and I was denied a meeting with him as a result,” said Shahla Humbatova.
Background: Blogger and former administrator of critical Facebook page “Ditdili” (Mosquito) Khalid Khanlarov was arrested on January 23, 2016 on charges of resisting the police. He was subsequently sentenced to 25 days of administrative detention. Khanlarov’s friends have reported that a day before his arrest, Khanlarov was called to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to give evidence about his activity on Facebook. According to the blogger’s friends, he was punished for his activity on Facebook.