Five teenagers were reportedly beaten and verbally assaulted by police in Azerbaijan after they had submitted a complaint against the police’s behaviour to the Interior Ministry.
The incident reportedly took place on the night of 17 June in Baku, after police officers accused the five teenagers of littering a park. The minors denied that they had littered, and eventually submitted a complaint to an Interior Ministry hotline against the police officers.
In response, the police dragged the teenagers away from the park, according to footage shared on social media. The officers prevented passersby from filming the incident.
However, one of the teenagers secretly audio recorded the police’s actions.
Mehman Huseynov, a prominent blogger, was among the first to share footage of the incident. He shared the audio allegedly recorded by the teenagers with OC Media, saying he had sourced it from one of his subscribers.
In the audio recording, the police can be heard shouting at and verbally insulting the teenagers. One police officer is heard demanding to know who had called the Interior Ministry hotline, threatening to ‘fuck him’. After that, the police could be heard demanding that the teenagers apologise for complaining to the ministry, ordering to say: ‘ask for forgiveness, say that you eat shit’.
One teenager is heard screaming, saying he is in pain and that he is afraid to get beaten. One of the minors could be heard crying.
Later, one teenager says that he was beaten and that he felt nauseous, to which an officer tells him that he could not vomit in the police car.
At some point in the recording, the police had likely arrived at the police station with the five teenagers. There, an officer is heard accusing one of the boys of theft — which he denied.
Huseynov told OC Media that the one of the teenagers was fined for littering. However, after footage of the incident surfaced online, the blogger told OC Media that the police called the boy’s parents, asked for forgiveness, and promised to return the money they had paid for the fine in exchange for not speaking about the incident.
The Interior Ministry has not issued any statement regarding the alleged incident.
Aytan Farhadova
