Protests erupt in Azerbaijani village after police car fatally hits 2 children

Mass protests have erupted in the Azerbaijani district of Imishli after a police car hit four schoolchildren in the village of Yalavaj, killing two.

The accident took place on Saturday afternoon, after which a crowd reportedly gathered around the police car and smashed it, prompting clashes with the police.

In response, the Ministry of Internal Affairs published a video of the accident, which was reportedly manipulated in order to hide that the police car had been speeding. The Internal Ministry also opened a criminal case against those accused of causing additional damage to the police car.

The Interior Ministry launched a separate case against the protesters, with state media reporting on 18 January that the authorities arrested group of people who had ‘committed hooliganism at the site of a fatal traffic accident in the Imishli district.’

According to information from the district, mass detentions took place overnight in Imishli after Azerbaijan reportedly deployed internal troops, a gendarmerie-like force,  in the district and introduced a special control regime.

On 19 January, Oxu, a pro-government news outlet, published a photo of those arrested from the district. RFE/RL cited a local source as saying that over 100 people were detained, with some of them being briefly apprehended in their homes at night.

Imishli’s Prosecutor’s Office has launched a criminal investigation into the car accident itself as a traffic violation.

Over the weekend, social media users reportedly identified the driver of the car as police officer Ulvi Ahmadov, the nephew of former MP Ahad Ahmadov.

In response to these accusations, pro-government media reported that a second driver in a Mercedes was the guilty party.

According to Qafqazinfo, a Mercedes with the state registration number 30-BH-904, but no license plate, drove in front of the police car, causing it to crash into the schoolchildren. They added that the driver of the car was Baylar Bayramov, born in 2008, and that the car belonged to Bayramov’s uncle.

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OC MediaAytan Farhadova