Azerbaijani activist Ramazan Taghiyev was told by passport control at Baku’s airport on Tuesday that he could not leave the country due to a travel ban.

According to Taghiyev, no state agencies informed him of any restrictions beforehand, and the money he spent on his flight ticket was not compensated.

Taghiyev was leaving Azerbaijan to study abroad in Poland. While Azerbaijani citizens can receive a travel ban if they fail to apply to the military commissariat to acquire official documentation to study abroad, Taghiyev stated that he had instead been banned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Two hours before his scheduled departure, Taghiyev stated that someone had called him. He alleged that the anonymous caller had taken ‘my phone number from some Polish group and urgently needed to send a watch to Warsaw. And he would pay for it, after which I agreed’.

On the way to the airport, Tagiyev told his taxi driver about the call, after which the taxi driver suggested he refuse the anonymous caller. According to the driver, the smugglers sometimes hide drugs inside watches, and that he had witnessed such a case before. 

Azerbaijani authorities have previously detained several activists on drug charges.

After hearing this testimony, Taghiyev refused to deliver the watch to Poland. 

Following his refusal, the anonymous caller phoned Taghiyev from a series of different numbers. 

‘I blocked his numbers and he called from a different number. I decided not to respond to him. In the end, I hung up on his call and told him not to disturb me, I will not deliver your watch’.

A series of travel bans

Taghiyev is the fifth person confirmed to have been banned from travelling since the arrest of researcher and OC Media contributor Bahruz Samadov on charges of treason.

[Read more: When advocating for peace becomes treason — the arrest of Bahruz Samadov]

Following Samadov’s arrest, two other OC Media contributors, Javid Agha and Samad Shikhi, were detained at the airport as they attempted to leave the country. They were questioned as witnesses in the case against Samadov.

An activist who wished to remain anonymous told OC Media that almost 20 people in Azerbaijan were given travel bans in relation to the case against Samadov.

‘Some of them now do not live in Azerbaijan, but I guess that they were also banned, because all of them have connections or were friends with Bahruz’, they said.

The authorities usually do not inform people whether they have placed travel restrictions on them.

In April, journalist Imran Aliyev was stopped at the airport and taken to the police station for questioning in the case against independent news outlet AbzasMedia. 

Fariz Namazli, a human rights lawyer, told OC Media that Azerbaijan’s prevention of potential witnesses from leaving the country was unlawful. He cited the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in the Mursaliyev and others v. Azerbaijan case, in which Azad Oktay Mursaliyev was barred from leaving Azerbaijan as a witness to a case. 

The court ruled that Azerbaijan had violated Mursaliyev’s freedom of movement.

Namazli also cited Azerbaijan’s migration code, which stipulates that in criminal cases, restrictions can be imposed on the suspect or accused, but not on witnesses.