Journalist Polad Aslanov goes on hunger strike in prison

On the evening of January 6, Polad Aslanov, an imprisoned director of the “xeberman.com” website, went on a hunger strike. The convicted journalist demands a reconsideration of his case and protests against the delay in the consideration of his complaint by the Supreme Court (SC) of Azerbaijan.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on November 16, 2020, the court sentenced Polad Aslanov, the editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani online editions “xeberman.com” and “press-az.com”, to 16 years of imprisonment in a case on high treason.

On the evening of January 6, Polad Aslanov declared a hunger strike, his spouse Gyulmira Aslanova reported.

“Yesterday, I got a call from the penal colony, and I was told that Polad had written a declaration about the start of the hunger strike. They invited me to persuade my husband not to hold his protest action, since they knew that I myself was against my husband’s hunger strike. I immediately went to the colony penal No. 1 and visited Polad. He said that he got no responses to his appeals to President Ilham Aliev, General Prosecutor Kyamran Aliev, and Ali Nagiev, the head of the State Security Service. Earlier, we had at least got responses to the appeals to former General Prosecutor Zakir Garalov. Polad is also dissatisfied with the fact that his cassation appeal is not being considered, Gyulmira Aslanova has told to the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

The spouse of Polad Aslanov also noted that, despite her attempts to persuade him, her husband decided to continue his hunger strike.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 7, 2022 at 02:59 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.