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Azerbaijani trade union member Mohyaddin Orujov has been sentenced to three years in prison on drug trafficking charges, becoming the fourth member of the Azerbaijani labour rights group the Workers Table Unions Confederation (WTUC) to be sentenced to prison in recent months.
Speaking in court on Tuesday, Orujov denied the charges, claiming that ‘the police had planted drugs in his pocket and slandered him’.
RFE/RL later reported that Orujov blamed Samir Chobanov, the head of the 32nd police station in Baku’s Surakhani district, for his arrest, alleging the charges against him stemmed from complaints he made regarding Chobanov’s unlawful behaviour during a previous arrest.
In October 2023, Orujov was arrested on charges of disobeying the police, after which he was sentenced to one month of administrative arrest. Orujov has consistently claimed his detention stemmed from complaints he made regarding the violation of his labour rights while working at a transformer factory.
Following his release, Orujov spoke about the violence he experienced while in police custody. According to him, this led the police to open a criminal case against him for drug smuggling, for which he was arrested in December 2023.
Orujov’s lawyer, Nazim Musayev, told OC Media that no evidence had been presented that proved Orujov’s guilt and reiterated his client’s innocence.
‘I also believe that Orujov was arrested for different reasons, he does not have any connection with drugs. He is not a drug user and all evidence was in the favour of Orujov’, Musayev said.
Musayev also highlighted that a video shown during the trial of Orujov’s detention in December 2023 appeared to have been filmed later in the evening around 18:00, though the official paperwork claimed Orujov had been detained at 13:00.
The WTUC was established in March 2022 by activists who tried to defend the rights of workers.
In September 2023, WTUC chair Afiaddin Mammadov was arrested on charges of hooliganism and intentionally causing serious bodily harm to someone. On 14 January 2025, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Two other WTUC members, Elvin Mustafayev and Aykhan Israfilov, were arrested on drug trafficking charges similar to Orujov, which the government has been repeatedly accused of fabricating as a means of repressing perceived dissidents.
Azerbaijani labour rights activist sentenced to 8 years in prison
Afiaddin Mammadov was convicted of intentionally causing serious bodily harm and hooliganism and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Aytan Farhadova
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