Azerbaijani active Facebook user sentenced to 5 years in prison
Omar Mammadov, Azerbaijani activist of social network Facebook, was sentenced to five years in prison, says the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan". According to the agency, the activist has been accused of drug trafficking.
"Turan" notes that the 19-year-old Mammadov is the leader of the youth movement "Ahyn" ("Stream") and a member of "Civil Solidarity" party. After his arrest, he moved to the youth movement NIDA.
"Mamedov was active blogger and one of the administrators of the "Selections from AzTV" page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pazaztv?fref=ts), cartoons, collages, comments making fun of flaws of the Azerbaijani authorities were published," reads the article.
Another online activist, Elsever Mursalli, member of the NIDA movement was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in April this year. He was also accused of illegal drug purchasing and trafficking. Moreover, on 25 November, 2013 on charges of drug trafficking was arrested Abdul Abilov, an active user of Facebook. On 13 November 2013, Rashad Agaaddin (Ramazanov), active Facebook user who criticized the authorities and mocked the President Ilham Aliyev for nominating himself to the presidency for a third term, was sentenced to 9 years in prison. A young activist of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, active user of social networks Dashgin Melikov was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison on July 3, 2013. He was recognized as political prisoner by a number of local and international human rights organizations and as a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International.
Azerbaijani Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) published a list of political prisoners existing in the country. Thus, as of May 21, 2014 there are 130 victims of political repression in Azerbaijan: 41 prisoners of conscience and 89 political prisoners.