Inmates of Gobustan Prison in Azerbaijan Tried to Commit Suicide

The administration of Gobustan prison (Azerbaijan) goes on exerting pressure on the participants in the hunger strike, trying to make them stop it, according to the sources linked with the prisoners' relatives who provided information to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The prison inmates think that the visits of human rights activists, contrary to expectations, played into the hand of the prison administration. "The claim of the human rights activists to the effect that only 3-4 persons take part in the hunger strike, matches the figure cited last Monday by Nazim Alekberov, head of Prison Inspection Agency, although the human rights activists have been provided with the list of names of the hunger strike participants. Such pliable stand of the human rights activists inspired the administration to start a new round of pressure on the hunger strike participants," note the prisoners.

"This attitude of the prison administration causes perplexity among prisoners, and some of them, unable to resist the pressure from the administration, have tried to commit suicide. For instance, prisoner Yashar Panakhpur tried to take his life by deeply cutting veins on his hands, while Rauf Eivazov and Bakhtiyar Djafarov stitched up their mouths and started a dry hunger strike," our sources note.

For reference, 89 persons for whom death penalty has been replaced by life imprisonment are being held at present in the Gobustan prison. During the recent years, these prisoners demand their life sentences to be replaced by a certain period in prison, since no life sentence existed in the legislation at the moment of their conviction.