Hilal Mammadov v. Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan is to pay EUR 13,000 to editor-in-chief
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) pronounced its decision in the case of Hilal Mammadov v. Azerbaijan. The Court found that Azerbaijan violated the rights of Hilal Mammadov, the editor-in-chief of the Talysh newspaper . The judgment is published on the website of the court. The Court found that there was a violation of Article 3 (Prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards the applicant’s ill-treatment by the police and the lack of an effective investigation of his allegations. According to the judgment, at around noon on 21 June 2012, when the applicant was on his way home, six or seven plain-clothes police officers assaulted him near the Neftchilar metro station in Baku. Without showing their official identification, they restrained the applicant’s arms and began to hit him below the knees. They kicked him in the lower part of his right ribcage and then slipped narcotic substances into his right trouser pocket. They handcuffed him and dragged him into their car, where they continued to beat him. In the car they started to insult him, making comments about his ethnic origin, and threatened him on account of a video recording he had uploaded to the YouTube online video platform. The police officers did not inform the applicant of the reasons for his arrest. Indeed, the applicant did not even realise that he had been arrested by the police until he was taken to the Narcotics Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Court held that Mammadov’s rights were violated twice: he was subjected to torture and complaints were not investigated. Taking into consideration these and other facts, the ECHR held that Azerbaijan is to pay Mammadov EUR 13,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 2,500 in respect of costs and expenses. Hilal Mammadov is known for the popular on the Internet video “Who are you? Come on, good-by.”
