Key U.S. senators called on Monday urged Azerbaijan to release leading activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and other political prisoners immediately, TURAN’s Washington correspondent reports.
“I continue to believe Azerbaijan’s future should be in the community of democracies, but the detention of political prisoners, such as activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, undermines that path,” Senator Dick Durbin, the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, noted.
“Azerbaijan should release Hajiyev and other political prisoners immediately,” Durbin said in a tweet.
Senator Ben Cardin, co-chair of the Helsinki Commission, also called on the Azerbaijani government to immediately release Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, “who has been unjustly detained on false pretenses since December,” as he put it.
“We can and will hold accountable all those who seek to undermine human rights,” Cardin noted in a separate tweet.
Hajiyev was arrested on Dec 9 for alleged “hooliganism” and “disrespect for court”, claims that he strongly rejects and started a hunger strike.
Senators’ tweets come after the State Department on Saturday renewed its call for Hajiyev’s expeditious release, noting that the activist has been suffering from a severe deterioration in his health and risks going into a coma, citing an independent physician.
Later on the weekend, the Department posted the following via its Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau Twitter account: “We urge Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release human rights defenders Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and Elchin Mammad – and all those incarcerated for exercising fundamental freedoms – and to lift the house arrest and charges against Elchin Sadygov”
Alex Raufoglu