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Bodies of three Islamists killed during armed clashes with the police in the Azerbaijani settlement Nardaran were given to their families and buried in the local cemetery, Azerbaijani news agency APA reports. 

According to Turan agency, Nardaran residents were detained on 1 December as law enforcement officers broke doors to rush into homes and take out men pushing them into police vehicles. One of the locals said armed police officers had been at their home still at night. They detained the head of the family arrogating to him illegal possession of arms, which they had brought in themselves. Later, several journalists entered to that home and were told by the mistress that the police had taken her husband and son to interrogation promising to take them back again.

“The total number of the people detained in Nardaran today is unknown. However, the police and security ministry’s actions imply that the law enforcement look for arms and ‘harmful’ literature,” Turan writes and informs that the village is still blocked by the law enforcement agencies.

APA reports that the streets in Nardaran were cleaned of radical religious calls, slogans and barricades. A number of high officials from the Internal Ministry arrived in the village, including the deputy minister Vilayat Eyvazov. The village is totally under the police’s control, which reportedly carried out an operation of detaining participants of November 26 incident. Arms and ammunition were found and confiscated from several houses. According to Haqqin.az reports, enhanced security measures were used at the entrances to Baku with every vehicle driving into the capital being checked.

According to the statement of the Internal Ministry, cited by APA, Mubariz Ibrahimov, a Ganja resident supporting the members of Muslims Unity movement, was detained during the operational-investigative activities carried out by the officers of the main police department of the city. Four RGD-5 hand grenades, one bulletproof vest and two copies of an appeal by the leader of Muslims Unity, Haji Taleh Bagorzade, were found in his car and confiscated. Ramiz Sariyev, Rovshan Asadov, Anar Sultanov, Fizuli Abbasov and Ramil Abbasov are among other locals detained in a similar scenario for supporting Muslims Unity. 

The Monitoring Centre for Political Prisoners issued a statement over the events in Nardaran. According to the authors of the statement, led by the head of the centre, Elshan Hasanov, the authorities used ‘inadequate’ force against Bagirzade’s supporters because they could do without victims. “It is illegal to refer to those killed and detained as terrorists and criminals before a ruling of court. For the moment, they are only suspects,” the centre said as cited by Turan. The statement also condemns the blockade of the village and notes the necessity of the authorities’ help in settling the issue with the population’s electricity debt. The authors voice their support to the address of Nardaran’s elders and women to the president as they request to find a solution to the situation with negotiations and condemn the bringing of the Internal Troops into the village.

According to Report agency, the Internal Ministry, Security Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a joint statement that 4 assault rifles, 4 handguns, 12 grenades, 3 pieces of explosives, one of them remote-controlled, 10 pieces of ‘Molotov cocktail,’ 7 pieces of knives and daggers, 3 pieces of brass knuckles and other material evidence were confiscated from the place. The Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal case under 120, 214, 220, 228, 233, 278, 279, 281, 283, 315 and other articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. The courts used arrest as preventive measure against all the 24 Islamists connected with the movement Muslims Unity, including its leader Taleh Bagirzade.

A representative of Azerbaijan’s civil society, who wished to remain anonymous, told the website Caucasian Knot that the Islamists are the main threat to the political regime in the country as there is practically no secular opposition remaining. “That is why the authorities have started a resolute struggle against them. And a very appropriate time is chosen for that as the world now tends to fight religious radicalism,” Caucasian Knot’s interlocutor noted.