Ukraine deports blogger to Azerbaijan where he faces prison
Azerbaijani man Elvin Isayev disappeared in Kyiv on Dec. 12.
His whereabouts were unknown until the State Migration Service of Azerbaijan reported on Dec. 14 that he had been deported from Ukraine on Dec. 12 for violating immigration laws. He is being held in a detention center in Baku.
President Volodymyr Zelensky plans to visit Azerbaijani in December, several Ukrainian media outlets reported, citing their sources.
Isayev arrived in Kyiv in late September, according to Azerbaijani journalist-in-exile Fikret Huseynli. Despite having a Dutch passport, Huseynli was arrested in Ukraine in 2018 and faced extradition to his native country of Azerbaijan but won the case and returned to the Netherlands.
“Isayev contacted me on Dec. 3 seeking help and advice. I told him to stay in, not to use metro, order food online. He didn’t plan to stay in Ukraine and wanted to go to Europe and seek asylum there,” Huseynli told the Kyiv Post over the phone. “He told me some acquaintance of his promised to help him get a visa to Slovakia. But he was lied to. Azerbaijani citizens can’t get Schengen visas without residence in Ukraine.”
Isayev has got 20,800 subscribers on his YouTube channel. He wasn’t a journalist nor a professional video blogger.
But his thing was insulting the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his family, says Huseynli, and he gained some scandalous fame on social media for his foul-mouthed rants.
The ruling family of the oil-rich country monopolized not only power but also control over all major sectors of the economy. The authoritarian clan has been implicated in massive corruption schemes and rigging elections while generously spending on western PR firms to whitewash its reputation in the west. Any criticism has been brutally stifled through arrests and prosecution. Journalists and bloggers are specifically targeted.
Several dissidents were arrested or abducted in former Soviet countries at the behest of the Azerbaijani government.
“After the total capture of the media environment inside the country, the government of Ilham Aliyev has turned its attention to silencing critics in exile,” wrote the non-profit Index of Censorship in its 2019 report on the state of media freedom in Azerbaijan.
Born in Azerbaijan, Isayev lived in Russia for nearly two decades. In 2001, he received Russian citizenship. He married a Russian woman and ran a retail business.
Two years ago, Isayev helped an Azerbaijani emigre Qurban Mammadov, who lives in London, launch an opposition YouTube channel called Azer Freedom TV, said Huseynli.
The problems began in August 2019. Azerbaijani authorities opened a criminal case against Isayev and ordered his arrest. Huseynli says the charges are grave: terrorism. But the Kyiv Post could not verify the charges.
Isayev got arrested in St. Petersburg, where he had lived for years, and had his Russian passport revoked by a court. The Russian authorities, however, could not send him to Azerbaijan after the European Court for Human Rights blocked his extradition.
His Russian lawyer told Reuters back in August that Isayev had tried to give up his Azerbaijani citizenship in the past but the government of that country did not accept it.
Huseynli believes the blogger was lured into a trap by Mamedov, who is suspected to collaborate with the Azerbaijani security agency.
“Mammadov advised him to go to Ukraine, and he gave his location to Azerbaijani agents,” Huseynli told the Kyiv Post. “After what happened to me in Ukraine, many Azerbaijani journalists refused to go there. It is unsafe for political refugees.”
He added that it was risky for Isayev to come to Ukraine because of the video in which he expresses support for the Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In the video, Isayev shows humanitarian aid that is being sent to Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts from the Azerbaijani diaspora. “Hold on. Russia is with you. We are praying for you,” Isayev says in the video.
Mammadov has not replied by the time this story was published.
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