Bakhtiyar Hajiyev is an Azerbaijani activist and blogger who served a prison sentence from 2011 to 2012 on charges of evading military service. His imprisonment was protested by numerous human rights organizations.
On 4 March 2011, Hajiyev was questioned by police about Facebook activity related to an upcoming anti-government protest, scheduled for 11 March. Later in the day, he was arrested on charges of having disobeyed a police order not to leave the city of Ganja while charges that he had evaded military service were being investigated. On 7 March, Hajiyev passed his lawyer, Elchin Namazov, a letter stating that he had been beaten, tortured, and threatened with sexual abuse while in custody. When Namazov visited Hajiyev on 7 May, the lawyer saw "an open wound on Hajiyev's neck, bruises on his eyes, and a hematoma on the left side of his nose". Namazov filed a complaint with Ganja's prosecutor's office, but authorities reportedly failed to investigate Hajivev's claims of abuse. On 18 May, the Nizami District Court of Ganja sentenced Hajiyev to two years' imprisonment. The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan upheld the sentence on 6 December 2011. A government official reported to the court that Hajiyev had been given a negative assessment by prison staff, indicating that he was unrepentant. Hajiyev was released early by the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan for good behavior on 4 June 2012. The announcement came days before a visit by U.S. Secretary of StateHillary Clinton.
International response to imprisonment
Several international human rights organizations objected to Hajiyev's arrest and sentence and called for his release. International organizations, including the ComparativeConstitutions Project, have objected to the legality of imprisonment for defying mandatory conscription laws, given the guaranteed rights of Azerbaijani citizens under their own national constitution. Amnesty International described Hajiyev as "continually harassed solely for peacefully expressing his views", called for an investigation into his allegations of police torture, named him a prisoner of conscience, and called for his immediate release. Human Rights Watch described his arrest and conviction as "examples of the Azerbaijani government's efforts to silence dissent" and called on European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek to press for Hajiyev's immediate release on a 20 May visit to Azerbaijan. Index on Censorship compared Hajiyev's arrest on a charge unrelated to activism to that of Jabbar Savalan—an activist imprisoned on charges of marijuana possession—describing it as "a tactic increasingly employed to silence dissenting voices". Reporters Without Borders also called on the Azerbaijani government "to release Hajiyev immediately and to drop the charges against him".
US Senator Mark Kirk issued a statement calling for Hajiyev's release, saying that the case "typifies the State Department’s alarming assessment of human rights in Azerbaijan". On 12 May, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Azerbaijan's "practice of intimidating, arresting, prosecuting and convicting independent journalists and political activists on various criminal charges", and called for the release of prisoners including Hajiyev.
