Azerbaijani writer and OC Media contributor Samad Shikhi has reportedly been detained at Baku airport as he was attempting to leave the country.
Reports emerged of Shikhi’s detention on Friday evening, shortly after the Sabail District Court charged Bahruz Samadov, another OC Media contributor and researcher, with treason.
[Read more: Bahruz Samadov charged with treason]
Shikhi, like Samadov, was an outspoken advocate for democracy and human rights in Azerbaijan — and for peace with Armenia.
Rustam Ismayilbayli, an activist, posted on social media that Shikhi had texted him that he was being detained at the airport. Ismayilbayli told OC Media that Shikhi was headed to Tbilisi at the time of his detention. He added that Shikhi had told him earlier that he had expected to be arrested.
Nurlan Libre, an Azerbaijani journalist, also told OC Media that Shikhi was detained at the airport. He said Shikhi’s detention was the ‘start of another wave of repression and arrests of peace activists’.
‘This isn’t the first time, the last time was a year ago around this time, when Azerbaijan was conducting a military operation in [Nagorno-Karabakh]. Four people were arrested last year for their [peace activism]’, he said.
There have been no official comments on Shikhi’s reported detention.
Shikhi has previously written for OC Media about Azerbaijan’s persecution of Shiite Muslims against the backdrop of Azerbaijan’s deteriorating relations with Iran.
It is not yet clear what charges Shikhi could face.
However, Samadov was the second Azerbaijani researcher to be charged with treason in less than a month, after the Azerbaijani authorities arrested Igbal Abilov, an ethnic Talysh researcher, on charges of treason and accused him of making ‘secret negotiations and deals’ via Skype with Armenian academics.
Read in Armenian on CivilNet.
