Azerbaijani journalist detained by Georgia begins dry hunger strike

Afgan Sadigov, an Azerbaijani journalist currently detained in Georgia while awaiting extradition to Azerbaijan, has decided to escalate his hunger strike which has been ongoing for more than 130 days by refusing to drink water.

Sadigov’s wife, Sevinj Sadigova, announced that her husband would stop drinking water on Monday.

As of Monday, Sadigov has been on hunger strike for 136 days.

‘The political order of [Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev] is being carried out by the [founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party] Bidzina Ivanishvili’s regime! Both regimes are enemies of the people and murderers’, she posted on Facebook.

Sadigova told OC Media that her husband lost more than 40 kilogrammes since beginning his hunger strike, and his unable to physically move on his own without a wheelchair.

‘He said he wouldn’t take water or drugs’, she said, adding that he suffers from additional health conditions.

‘He says that the regime that governs Georgia does not allow the court to make free decisions’.

Sadigov, the head of Azerbaijani news outlet and YouTube channel Azel.tv  was detained pending an extradition trial in early August. He had been living in Georgia with his family since December 2023 and had planned to leave the country two weeks before his arrest, but was barred by immigration officers at the airport from exiting Georgia.

The Tbilisi City Court ruled in favour of his extradition to Azerbaijan on 28 November, but the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) temporarily barred his extradition on 14 January as an interim measure.

ECHR reportedly temporarily bars Georgia from extraditing Sadigov to Azerbaijan

Sadigov has been on a hunger strike for around 120 days in his own form of protest.

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On Friday, the Social Justice Centre (SJC), a human rights organisation, said that the court extended Sadigov’s extradition detention for another three months as per the prosecutor’s request.

The SJC has appealed to the ECHR asking that it extend its interim measure banning Sadigov’s extradition until it reaches a final ruling on his case.

‘We don’t know how he will feel [by then], but we hope for the best’, Sadigova told OC Media. ‘This regime has destroyed everything, our family, and Afgan’s freedom. They are destroying our lives and killing a person, but this isn’t done by law but done by the regimes of Ivanishvili and Aliyev.’

Azerbaijan has been cracking down on independent media since November 2023, beginning with a raid on AbzasMedia. More recently, the authorities in Baku detained journalists from Meydan TV, another independent news outlet.

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