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Opposition Musavatpartyissued a statement regarding the young activists BayramMammadov and GiyasIbrahimov’s arrest and criticized the Azerbaijani authorities’ actions. They called it a serious blowto the country’s international image, Turan news agency reports.

The authors of the statement consider the initial disappearance and later arrest of both on drug charges at leaststrange. “There is ground to think that the arrest has something to do with the slogan written on the pedestal of a monument,” the party said in the statementdemanding an immediate release of the young activists arrested on politically motivated charges.

Freedom House also issued a statement noting that after releasing 24 political and religious prisoners, Azerbaijani authorities seem eager to fill the empty cells with more freedom defenders.

According to Freedom House vice-presidentRobert Herman, democratic countries should demand that Azerbaijan respect fundamental freedoms and permit civil society to operate freely. It is noted that Azerbaijan is rated Not Free in media freedom ranking.

The young men were arrested on drug charges, whereas their real guilt is that they wrote on the pedestal of the monument to Heydar Aliyev“Congratulations on the slavery festival,” opposition online media outlet Meydan TV reports.

“They were arrested on drug charges. Police invaded into their house without permission and using force. Noneofthefamilymemberstookpartinthesearch. The guys have nothing to do with drugs,” lawyer ElchinSadigov said.

According to the lawyer, GiyasIbrahimov has denied the testimony extorted earlier from him through tortures. “They think that these guys are the authors of the inscription. The court demanded from them to apologize in front of the monument. They told them to apologize before AzTV cameras in order to be released,” the lawyer said.

According to the Azerbaijani media, at night of Heydar Aliyev’s (current Azerbaijani president's father) birthday, unknown authors painted on the pedestal of the monument, towards which marches traditionally begin to bow to the “nationwide leader” and “savior of the nation” since morning.
The inscription was a pun on the phrase “Congratulations on flower festival,” in the first word of which, two letters were changed giving the word and the phrase a different meaning quite popular among the Azerbaijani dissidents and opposition - “Congratulations on the slavery festival!”

The flower festival has been annually celebrated in Azerbaijan on May 10 since 2004. It is dedicated to Heydar Aliyev’s birthday. Huge sums of money are spent on the festival. In particular, Baku City Hall published the figure 15 million dollars in 2007, and in 2013, on Heydar Aliyev’s 90th anniversary, this sum exceeded 76 million dollars.