The academic community of Charles University in Prague is concerned at the arrest of Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral student at its Faculty of Social Sciences, in Azerbaijan, and is following the situation closely, Petra Klusakova from the Rector’s Office told CTK yesterday.
The faculty and university management are gathering information from verified sources, she added.
The Azeri authorities have detained Samadov on suspicion of treason.
He was one of the few publicly known critics of the regime still at large until Wednesday evening, BBC News reported on Thursday.
Radio Freedom/Radio Free Europe also reported on Samadov’s detention on its website.
The Czech Foreign Ministry is closely monitoring the situation, but given the sensitivity of the case, it is not appropriate to disclose details at this time, spokesman Daniel Drake told CTK yesterday.
“The management of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University together with the management of Charles University are working intensively to gather information from verified sources. Charles University has also approached the Czech Foreign Ministry with a request for cooperation,” Klusakova said.
According to the BBC, Samadov’s friends were unable to contact him on Wednesday and on Thursday morning, they learned from his relatives that his grandmother’s apartment, where he lived, had been searched by police and Samadov had been arrested.
The scientist’s grandmother later said that after her grandson’s arrest, she received a call from a woman who introduced herself as a lawyer. She told her that Samadov had been accused of treason after they found correspondence with Armenians in his possession, which allegedly proved that he had written articles criticising the situation in Azerbaijan on Armenian orders.
Samadov is known for his pacifist views and as an advocate of concluding peace as soon as possible with Armenia, the BBC noted. The two countries have been at war for more than 30 years. One of his friends told the Georgian website OC-Media that Samadov expected to be arrested and often joked about the subject.
In recent months, according to human rights activists, Azerbaijan has seen the worst repression since President Ilham Aliyev came to power in October 2003. There are more than 300 political prisoners in the country. Dozens of journalists have been behind bars since the authorities began detaining them late last year on the pretext of financial offences. They face up to 12 years in prison after their charges were toughened this month. Opposition activists, human rights advocates and scientists have also ended up in jail, BBC News reported.
