“My complaints about being subjected to threats and blackmails in Main Organised Crime Department (MOCD) in November 2016 and the attack on my car on 7 November 2016 have not been investigated yet.
On the contrary, today a police officer and a plainclothesman came to the apartment, where I store my law documents, tried to enter unlawfully, and fine me because I was, allegedly, not registered there, although I do not live there at all. I live in a two-room flat that I own together with my family. This is simply an attempt to deter me from my law practice in political cases and to threaten me.
According to Part 1 of Article 7 of the Law of Azerbaijan Republic on Lawyers and Lawyer Activity, institutions, enterprises and organisations, regardless of their organisational form, are obliged to assist attorneys in performing their professional duties. We have it the other way around. I am threatened, persecuted and blackmailed for my legal activity, and my life is in danger.
I ask the leadership of the country to take measures against the officials, who persecute, threaten and blackmail me and endanger my life because of my legal activity, and to give instructions to put an end to these acts.”
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not reacted to the lawyer’s appeal.
Note that Elchin Sadigov is the lawyer of human rights defender Leyla Yunus, youth activists Giyas Ibrahimov and Bayram Mammadov, blogger Mehman Huseynov, and journalists Fikrat Faramazoglu, Ikram Rahimov and Afgan Sadigov.