The week of November 21-25 saw a member of the Azerbaijan Islamic Party sentenced, a green zone in Baku being destroyed and cases pending at the European Court.
Member of the Azerbaijan Islamic Party was sentenced to 17 years in prison
On November 22, Sabuhi Salimov, a member of the Azerbaijan Islamic Party, who worked as a driver for party chairman Elchin Manafov, was sentenced at the Baku Serious Crimes Court. According to the verdict presided over by Judge Eldar Ismayilov, Salimov was found guilty for treason and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
It is claimed in the materials of the criminal case that he cooperated with Iran’s special services – he carried out the instructions of the leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against Azerbaijan and sent them information. According to the indictment, he spied for financial gain.
However, Salimov does not accept these accusations. He confirms that he visited Iran with his family members, burned the Israeli flag in Baku, took pictures of it and sent it to Iran. However, he does not agree with the claims that he did it on their instructions: according to him, he wanted to hold a protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Baku. For this purpose, he applied to the Baku City Executive Authority but didn’t get authorization. That’s why he decided to carry out the act by himself.
Environmental activist: “The green zone in Badamdar is being destroyed”
Kanan Khalilzadeh, a member of Ecofront organization, told Meydan TV that the city authorities are destroying the green zone in Badambar. According to him, the trees obstruct a construction process, and the entrepreneur removes the trees one by one to avoid noise. As a result, the green zone is destroyed.
“A permit for the removal of trees was not obtained. According to our information, although the State Environmental Expertise Agency was contacted, it did not give a positive opinion to the entrepreneur regarding the removal of trees”, he adds.
The information released by the State Environmental Security Service of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources states that they will investigate the uprooting of trees by means of machinery at Badamdar settlement was investigated.
The official of the service, Bahruz Mahammadov, said that during the investigation, it was determined that the trees on the privately owned land at the mentioned address were illegally moved to another area within the boundaries of the area without a proper opinion. A protocol was drawn up on Zaur Dadashov, the citizen responsible for the area, and he was fined 5,000 AZN.
Cases pending at the European Court: Azerbaijan is in 8th place
Turkey has moved to the first place on the list of pending cases to be analyzed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 19,850 cases to be considered, after Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe (CoE).
This leaves Azerbaijan on the eighth place on the list of cases to be analyzed with a total of 2,200 cases. After Azerbaijan, Serbia comes in 9th place with 1,700 complaints, and Armenia in 10th place with 1,250 cases.
These applications awaiting processing are more than the previous years’ figures, which grew from 2,092 applications in 2021. Being 8th in the ranking is an indication of the increase of cases awaiting decision.
