{"id":110,"date":"2014-05-09T07:41:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T07:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=110"},"modified":"2014-05-12T07:48:36","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T07:48:36","slug":"azerbaijani-government-sending-north-korea-style-message-to-pro-democracy-community-of-azerbaijan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=110","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijani Government Sending North Korea-Style Message to Pro-Democracy Community of Azerbaijan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Azeri Report
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

BAKU. May 9, 2014: Young man on the photo is Dashgin Malikov and he is bowing to the grave\/statue of Heydar Aliyev, the former president of Azerbaijan and the father of the incumbent Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. Apparently, this was a price he had to pay to be released from jail.<\/p>\n

Dashgin Malikov is a new member to the ruling party YAP. He was formerly the member of the opposition Popular Front Party and admin of the Facebook page with sharp criticisms of the Azerbaijani government and the ruling YAP. This photo was taken as Dashgin Malikov was being released on parole after having served one-third of his jail sentence.<\/p>\n

\"Malikov<\/a>
Malikov and bowing to the grave\/statue of Heydar Aliyev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dashgin Malikov had been arrested on March 25, 2013 on fabricated drug possession charges and sentenced to two and half years in jail. He is suffering from severe form of asthma. His deteriorating health condition in jail was an issue of public discussions and international human rights reports for quite some time. While in jail, in November 2013, on the eve of the presidential elections, Dashgin Malikov issued a statement denouncing his opposition party membership and announcing his becoming a member of the ruling YAP.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the court agreed to consider Malikov\u2019s health conditions and transfer him to the lightest form of prison arrangement (akin to parole, but with more frequent check-ups with an assigned jail unit). The next thing, the pro-government media outlet APA reports that Dashgin Malikov \u201cexpressed his desire to visit Heydar Aliyev\u2019s grave\u201d and the jail administration \u201caccommodated this request\u201d allowing Dashgin Malikov, accompanied by his father and a jail administration officer, to visit the grave of Heydar Aliyev – the former Soviet KGB general and the former dictator of Azerbaijan and, more importantly, the father of the incumbent Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the journalists, Dashgin Malikov\u2019s father Alisafa Malikov said his son\u2019s condition was really deteriorating and he is glad that Dashgin got finally released from jail. Alisafa Malikov also spoke to Meydan TV telling that his son first resisted to the idea of visiting Heydar Aliyev\u2019s grave. When they were finally there, Dashgin refused to be video-recorded, but \u201cthey took photos”.<\/p>\n

This seems to be a new price exacted from dissidents in Azerbaijan for being released from prison. Thus, the Aliyev government is sending a chilling North Korea-style message to the Azerbaijani opposition and the entire pro-democracy community that the dictatorship is strong enough to break their will. The photos below are taken from the “photo-session” of the pro-government news agency APA which reported about Dashgin Malikov’s visit to Heydar Aliyev’s grave. (Azeri Report)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Azeri Report BAKU. May 9, 2014: Young man on the photo is Dashgin Malikov and he is bowing to the grave\/statue of Heydar Aliyev, the [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-azerbaijan-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}