Azerbaijan Anti-Government Protester Jailed on Drug Charges
An Azeri youth who called on his Facebook friends in February to stage a “day of rage” protest against the government of President Ilham Aliyev was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail on drug charges.
The allegations against Jabbar Savalanli, 19, were “groundless,” defense lawyer Asabali Mustafayev said by phone. The defense team will appeal today’s verdict, he said.
Several dozen Savalanli supporters protested the conviction outside the court in Sumqayit, Azerbaijan’s third-largest city, chanting “Freedom,” according to a video on the website of the Azeri-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Police briefly detained seven protesters, Orkhan Mansurzade, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told the radio station.
Azerbaijan’s political opposition is seeking to replicate the uprisings that ousted rulers in Egypt and Tunisia. Young people, including Savalanli, started a campaign on the Facebook Inc. social-networking website to hold nationwide protests.
Aliyev took over from his father in 2003 in the first dynastic succession in a former Soviet republic.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zulfugar Agayev in Moscow at zagayev@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm at htromm@bloomberg.net
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