Repin.info: Situation related to sexual offences in Azerbaijani army is shocking
Descriptions of love-cases of Azerbaijani soldiers and commanders, not towards the country, but towards the other soldiers are so many that one can really get shocked, the author of "Sexual offences in Azerbaijani army" article published on Repin.info website writes.
The author of the article notes, that he decided to look through the informative materials on the topic of the Azerbaijani army after he read the message in the media about how Malinovsky District Court in Odessa approved of the decision of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office to grant extradition to a serviceman of Azerbaijani Army detained in the Odessa, who was accused of organizing a series of gang rapes with his comrade-in-arms. Here's what he managed to find out.
In 2011, while in the hospital Yusuf Geybatzade repeatedly beat and raped another soldier who was being treated too. When another soldier saw all this, Gaybatzade beat him too. This soldier reported to the commander of his squadron and the case was transferred to the military prosecutor's office. Finally Ganja military court sentenced the offender to eight years in prison for the torture and abuse of his comrade-in-arms. "There is no concept of male-rape in the Azerbaijani judicial system," the author explains.
The article noted that the Gaybatzade case was not the first in the Azerbaijani army. Thus in August 2010, three Azerbaijani servicemen - Askerov, Shirinov and Mehtiev were convicted for sexual offence, extortion and hazing towards their comrades-in-arms. In April of the same year junior sergeant Arif Gurbanov was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for regular sexual offences towards his comrades-in-arms. In 2011, Senior Sergeant Mammadov and Pvt. Huseynov have been convicted for two and a half years imprisonment for committing sexual offence towards ten of their comrades-in-arms. "It’s noteworthy that Huseynov’s punishment was later reduced to nine months," the author writes.
"But the most amazing case was that of Emin Rahimov’s, Togrul Bagirov’s and Yusif Yusifov’s. These three magic heroes raped the whole platoon. There were 28 victims found in this case. Factually three amative soldiers turned the whole platoon into their harem, and enjoy their sexual services at any time they wished," the author notes, and stresses that all this was taking place during passing the military service in the post on the border with Nagorno-Karabakh.
The platoon commander Lieutenant Shamil Tagiyev and his deputy, lieutenant Ramal Emrahov condoned all this and were engaged in their own business. "What business could be on the area where there is an incessant war going on for twenty years, it’s a big mystery," stresses author of the article.
Another case is related with the first lieutenant Anar Azizov, who regularly raped recruits. The author refers to the Azerbaijani newspaper "Bizim Yol", which states that according to the military rank, the appeal did not pass his hands from the beginning, so the exact number of victims is unknown. He managed to rape six in the final appeal. This became known to their relatives. Only after the assault of the military unit this man was arrested.
On January 28, in 2010 in the artillery battalion, located in Dashkesan region, two first year soldiers shot a group of officers. Four were killed, two – wounded. According to the reports of the military command, the murderers had shot themselves. However, according to the human rights activists, they were shot for concealment of the motive that drove them to commit the crime - one of them was raped by the officers, the second was a warned that he was the next.
The author also writes that recently the Azerbaijani newspaper "Zerkalo" reported about sexual offense of a serviceman by commander of the unit. Armed Forces leadership immediately stated that it is a blatant slander. However, Yashar Jafarli, the head of the Azerbaijani public association "Retired officers and officers in reserve" confirmed the fact of the crime, and stated that the practice of "officer rapes" is widely used in this area.
To the question, how does the leadership of Azerbaijani army respond to these egregious facts, the author quotes the words of the head of the press service of the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan, Colonel-General Eldar Sabiroglu: "It is not violence; the amount of testosterone in the blood of the youngsters increases because of the good food. That is, cases of sexual offence in Azerbaijani Armed Forces are eloquent testimony of good nutrition of our soldiers. Notice, that the Armenians do not rape the young. This is the first sign that the Armenian soldiers are starving."