Polad Aslanov demands to drop case against him

Polad Aslanov, a journalist, who is on hunger strike at the isolation facility, has changed his demands, and is now insisting not on a fair trial, but on the closure of his case, his wife has informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 16, 2020, the court sentenced Polad Aslanov, the editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani Internet outlets "Xeberman.com" and "Press-az.com", to 16 years in prison under a treason case. On February 1, he went on a hunger strike, demanding a fair trial and transfer from custody to house arrest.

Gyulmira Aslanova, Polad's wife, said that she could see him on February 24 through a glass partition. "After I 'made some noise' in media, tirelessly addressing the Ombudsperson and embassies of foreign states, today, I finally was allowed to see Polad through a glass partition. He was very pale – on the 24th day of his hunger strike he is very weak. It turned out that on February 19, after he was visited by Red Cross officials, my husband was placed into the dungeon (punishment cell); and he is still kept there," she asserts.

"If anything happens to Polad, the responsibility will be directly on Azerbaijani political leadership," the journalist's wife has stated.

She has reported that Aslanov had changed the demands with which he went on a hunger strike: if earlier he insisted on an objective trial, now – on the termination of his criminal prosecution. "My husband is not guilty of anything. He was slandered. He is punished for exposing corruption among law enforcers," Gyulmira Aslanova has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 24, 2021 at 08:33 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.