Jabbar Savalan, a political dissent recognized as a prisoner of conscious by AI recruited to military service

Jabbar Savalan, a political activist was recruited to serve in the army yesterday. His mother Taravat Aliyeva says: “They lied to us, Cabbar was invited to pass a medical examination. All of a sudden, I received a call from him saying “he was being recruited for the army”. We have evidences that that he is unable to serve in the army. But our close relative was told in the military commissariat that the task had come from the top”.

Asabali Mustafayev, a lawyer says that  Cabbar’s one ear is hard. “The evidence from the relevant medical unit was submitted to the medical commission of the military commissariat. Jabbar has been continuously invited to commissariat several days running. Today he was also invited. Cabbar went, but there was no doctor. He left the commissariat and visited his uncle. Again he received a call urging him to be at commissariat by 13.00. When he came there for the second time, he was told being recruited to the army at 15.00. At present he is in Gobustan”.

His lawyer says that he will send a complaint to the court. As to his words, the prisoner must undergo a rehabilitation process aftermath the prison life. He was not granted this opportunity. He was told by the officers that a man should think of the service, even while sleeping. It seems they do not think of his health. His ear is hard to hear and this condition will create him problems in the army. We’re very concerned. That’s why we’ll go to court and seek justice on legal grounds.

Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA) made a statement and condemned the government’s behaviour regarding a man, who needed to go through a rehabilitation process aftermath the prison.

The statement says:

 “Cabbar Savalan, a member of Youth Wing of PFPA was illegally recruited for the army on April 30. Notwithstanding his problem with ear and possession of relevant medical evidence, military commissariat considered him able to serve in the army and recruited without any prior notification. PFPA thinks that the ruling power failed to take him away from his political path and resorted to military service as a way of punishment.

PFPA considers the military service very important and sacred for the protection of motherland, but using it for political purposes and as a way of punishment for dissent voice is very negligent and defective.

PFPA thinks that Cabbar’s educational or occupational deferment must be recognized as it applies to all the citizens of Azerbaijan, his violated educational rights and right to study at his University to be reinstated and conditions created to continue his education”

PFPA calls upon the ruling power to refrain from the mistake regarding Jabbar Savalan for the second time and show respect to the rule of law and human values”.

Please, note that Jabbar Savalan (born c. 1991) was an Azerbaijani blogger, political activist, a student at Sumgait State University (aftermath the arrest he was excluded from the university and reinstated in December 2011), became active in the youth wing of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), the nation’s one of the primary opposition party to the continued authoritarian rule. On 4 May 2011, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison on charges of dealing drugs. The Azerbaijani government defended the ruling, but the European parliament and several human rights groups such as Amnesty International alleged the charges were fabricated and part of a pattern of framing government dissidents to silence them. He received a presidential pardon on 26 December 2011.