Imprisoned Azerbaijani journalist Polad Aslanov has ended a 23-day hunger strike after the authorities agreed to provide him with medical examinations he had demanded.
Aslanov’s wife, Gulmira Aslanova, announced the end of the journalist’s hunger strike on Sunday, saying that Aslanov ended his protest after meeting with the deputy head of the Penitentiary Service, Fikrat Gafarov.
Aslanova wrote on Facebook that Aslanov would be provided with his demanded medical examination, his family would be allowed to visit him, and that the Penitentiary Service would lift his ban on making phone calls.
Later, Aslanov phoned his wife and expressed his gratitude to everyone who supported him.
Aslanova told OC Media that her husband weighed 45 kilogrammes before beginning his hunger strike and that he received no medical care during.
‘These periods are so stressful, and from the stress, I have health issues in my stomach, I had a panic attack, and for about 23 days, I couldn’t eat anything with my daughter. We only thought about him, and a day before he ended his ending hunger strike, Polad said that he would escalate his protest to a dry hunger strike’, she told OC Media.
Aslanova stressed that she had been unsuccessfully trying to reach the Public Defender’s Office, the Justice Ministry, and the Penitentiary Service over the past week.
‘Last time when I called the Public Defender, a representative of the office shouted at me. And I asked Polad to refuse to meet with people from the Public Defender because none of them listened to me’, she told OC Media.
She said that prison regulations stipulate that Aslanov should be separated from other prisoners during his hunger strike, and should receive medical assistance — both of which he was denied.
Aslanova added that Polad had applied to have the authorities legally acknowledge his hunger strike three times — twice in late August and once in early September. Azerbaijani prisons and detention centres need to approve of prisoner hunger strikes in order to deem their protests legal and to provide them with controlled medical assistance during their hunger strike.
‘Ramig Nasibov, the head of the facility N15, received them, but never responded. And they found another solution to ending his hunger strike, asking the other prisoners to force Polad to stop the hunger strike’, she said.
Aslanova had previously said that during Aslanov’s hunger strike, he complained of ringing in his ears, wheezing in his lungs, and that he could not sleep at night due to feeling ‘suffocated’.
Aslanov, who ran the independent news websites Xeberman and Press-az, was sentenced to 13 years of prison in 2019 after being convicted of state treason for allegedly spying for Iran. He has denied the accusations.
Aytan Farhadova
