Azerbaijan: excluded university student plans to go on hunger strike

The Azerbaijani authorities fail to react to multiple addresses and appeals to restore the 4th year student Pyarviz Azimov at the Lenkoran State University (LSU); in his opinion, he was excluded last week from the University for publishing an article entitled "Corruption Scandal in Lenkoran University". Should his rights not be restored, Azimov is going to start a hunger strike.

"Despite the appeal of the Committee in Defence of Azimov's rights to President Ilham Aliev and to other state agencies with a demand to restore the student's rights, we see no results," said Ramin Gadzhily, chairman of the youth organization of the Party of Democratic Reforms, today at a press conference in the Baku Media Centre.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Mr Gadzhily has emphasized that only NGOs and international organizations express their support to Azimov. He added that on April 29 a claim was lodged to the Lenkoran Court with a demand to reinstate Azimov at the University.

Having stated his distrust in a fair solution of the issue in Azerbaijan, Ramin Gadzhily has stated the intention to reach the European Court on Human Rights.

In parallel, the Committee in Defence of Azimov's Rights is campaigning to sign-in in Azimov's support, having already gathered more than 500 signatures.

However, MP Panakh Gusein believes that the problem will be settled in favour of Azimov, since in this case, as he thinks, "there are no political motives", only "unhealthy ambitions" of LSU's top managers.