On April 4th employees of Sadarak Customs Office of NakhchivanAutonomous Republic confiscated the voice recorder, photo and video
cameras of Hakimeldostu Mehdiyev and Elman Abbasov, IRFS
correspondents to Nakhchivan, who were returning from Turkey to
Nakhchivan.
officers. We wanted to cross the border to check it. Customs Office
employees demanded 20 AZN duty from us, which is not commonly required
in Julfa customs office. The customs employees insisted and we had to
give that money for the sake of our work,” said Hakimeldostu Mehdiyev.
When the journalists were returning, their luggage was checked several
times although their luggage met all the requirement. But the chief of
the Anti-Smuggling Department seized their voice recorder, photo and
video cameras, citing that these equipments were not mentioned in the
customs declaration.
Elman Abbasov says that it is illegal, because the equipments were not
new. In addition, none of the customs employees had required them to
show those devices in the declaration. In short, equipments that costs
less that 1000 AZN do not need to be mentioned in the declaration.
Then customs employees reminded the journalists of their articles
critical of the Customs Office. Today, the journalists went to
Nakhchivan State Customs Office and met with Rasim Aliyev, the
inspector of the Internal Security Office. But the equipments were not
returned to the journalists and they were told that their appeals
would be considered.
Mahammad Seyidov, the head of the Nakhchivan State Customs Office,
accused the journalists of defending the rights of the businessman
Mahammad Gurbanov, who complained against corrupt affairs of the
customs employees.