Azerbaijani authorities have arrested three tourists for offensive behaviour at gravesites at the Alley of Martyrs — a cemetery housing the graves of those killed by Soviet forces during protests in 1990 and soldiers killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Several pro-government media outlets and social media accounts have suggested the tourists may have been Saudi.
The three tourists were detained on Monday, a day after posting a video in which they appear to be mocking soldiers buried at the Alley of Martyrs.
According to pro-government media outlet APA, the three tourists were brought to the Sabail District Court, which remanded them to three months of pre-trial detention on charges of committing an offensive act on a grave on Monday.
While APA did not specify where the three tourists were from, several media outlets have indicated that they were Arabs or, more specifically, from Saudi Arabia.
The video the tourists were arrested for shows at least two people appearing to speak Arabic at the Alley of Martyrs. In the video, the tourists are seen pulling up a picture of what appears to be a soldier, possibly comparing it against a portrait on a headstone. The same person is also seen marching in front of the graves, accompanied with laughter in the background.
OC Media was unable to independently verify what was being said in the video.
Footage later emerged of the men apparently being escorted by the police out of a hotel at night, with separate daytime footage showing them being escorted into a police vehicle as onlookers swore at them in English and Arabic.
Nate Ostiller
