Azerbaijan Jails Rights Activist for Six Years

A court in Azerbaijan on Monday sentenced a prominent rights activist to six years in jail for hooliganism and possession of a knife, his lawyer said, denouncing the charges as bogus.

Elchin Sadygov told Agence France Presse that his client Hasan Huseynli had been "jailed for six years on bogus charges of hooliganism and possessing cold arms" by a court in the second city of Ganca.

Huseynli, who chairs the Intelligent Citizen rights group, had been accused of a knife attack on March 31, but that charge had not been proven, Sadygov said.

The justice ministry declined to comment.

Local rights groups said ahead of the trial that the activist had been gaining popularity among youths in the area, which they claimed was the real motivation for the prosecution.

Pro-democracy groups say the authorities in Azerbaijan have clamped down on opponents since President Ilham Aliyev was re-elected for a third term last year, although the government has consistently rejected such accusations.

Aliyev, 52, was re-elected last October after a poll seen as flawed by international observers, extending his family's decades-long grip on power in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation.

He first took power in 2003 following a disputed election after the death of his father Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and Communist-era leader.

Picture source: Civic Solidarity