...Azerbaijani prisons “I, Maxim Sherifov, from the village of Zukhrabkent, lived in the village of Samur, Magaramkent district, worked as an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Makhachkala. Now I am retired and go in for winter swimming. By the way, I am the champion of the western coast of the Caspian Sea in winter swimming and the champion of Makhachkala in summer long-distance sea swimming without insurance. I am writing about myself so that they don’t think that I am hiding under someone else’s name.

I belong to that category of Dagestanis whom the Azerbaijani official press, such as the Internet news portal Day.Az (the article of which was published in one of the issues of the Cheka), classifies as the “spreaders of rumors” about the situation of Lezgins in Azerbaijan. Having been a member of the “Sadval” movement for a long time, in the ranks of which I still see myself, I consider it my duty to take a similar position due to the policy pursued by the “tsIapash” (as Lezgins call Shia Azerbaijanis - editor’s note) leadership of Azerbaijan. So that my statements about the persecution of Lezgins in Azerbaijan do not look unfounded, like the chatter of Azerbaijani authors, I will remind you of specific facts. From 1997 to 1998, the trial of 5 Lezgins lasted. They were accused of organizing explosions in the Baku metro according to an Armenian order and script. The Armenians allegedly created and hastily trained for this purpose a group of 33 persons of Lezgin nationality. Here questions come to mind, such as: where are the other 28 Lezgin bombers, if only five are being tried? After a short training course, according to the Azerbaijani special services, they were sent to Baku to carry out a series of acts of sabotage there. But anyone who has knowledge in this area at least at the level of an avid viewer of spy films and reading detective stories will be able to understand that this is complete absurdity. To prepare 33 people who knew each other and openly came to Yerevan for operations that require three groups of three people is stupidity that even the intelligence of some Burkina Faso will not do. Not to mention a state that successfully carried out a military operation to seize 20% of the territory of a obviously stronger country (Azerbaijan), having another power at its side (Turkey), ready at any moment to wipe it off the face of the earth. It would be even more stupid for Armenia to take such a step, bearing in mind the inevitability of an international scandal, which is inevitable if such an adventure fails. After such an incident, Armenia’s position in international negotiations on Karabakh would obviously be a losing one. Now the Azerbaijani opposition itself, which takes an anti-Russian position, in its press convincingly proves the involvement of the Heydar Aliyev regime in the terrorist attacks of this wave in Baku. They needed the explosion in the subway to eliminate most of the existing and potential threat to the dictatorial regime.

Recently, presidential amnesties have been taking place from time to time in Azerbaijan for political prisoners, formally convicted, however, under criminal charges. But political prisoners are released strictly according to the fifth column in the Soviet passport, that is, ethnic Azerbaijani or Azeri Turks, as they declared themselves back in the days of Nakhichevan Abulfaz Elchibey. Lezgins, Avars or Talysh (for example, the leader of the Talysh people, hero of the Karabakh war Alikram Gumbatov) continue to serve their sentences. They release only those who are seriously and terminally ill, who have gone crazy from torture and humiliating procedures that insult male dignity, and who are morally “broken.” They release them so that, living out their lives among relatives and entourage, they can show with their humiliating situation the fate that awaits those who dare to take the path of protecting the legitimate rights of their people. Thus, even the release of our fellow countrymen is used by official Baku to intimidate the still strong-willed Lezgin patriots who are ready to do anything for their people.

Officially, human rights activists in Azerbaijan have recognized the presence of 14 politically convicted Lezgins in the prisons of this country. In fact, their number now reaches 45. In addition to these 14 people, according to my information, there are several dozen more Lezgins, who are mainly in the Gobustan prison. They were convicted under criminal charges and therefore were not included in this list. Among them are Niftali Niftaliev, brother of Rasim Bekerov, three more young men from the village of Khorel, 2 from Yasab, 4 from Kuzun-kishlak, about 10 from the city of Kusary, etc. They were tortured in prison or released to die in their homeland and soon died there: Nizami Melikov, Mubariz Ziyarov, Ruslan Bagiyev, Jalaleddin Ibragimov, Elkhan Orujev, Rovshan Kusarsky, Suliddin Yasabsky, Telman Suleymanov and many others.

The Dagestani “internationalists” sitting on Lenin Square play the role of Azerbaijani agents in this whole situation, conniving with them in infringing on the interests of the Lezgins south of Samur. Some of them have their source of financial well-being in Baku. So do we need such leaders for whom the interests of the indigenous Dagestanis living on their ancestral lands, which became part of the states of Transcaucasia, are an empty phrase? Isn’t it time for us, in light of the upcoming changes in the leadership of the republic, to see patriots at the head of Dagestan who are ready to raise the problems of ethnic Dagestanis to the international level and defend them properly?”

According to this fact

After checking the facts set out in the letter we published, we decided to provide clarification on some of them. Indeed, while defending the interests of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran, even provoking them to speak out against the legitimate authorities, even to the point of openly promoting separatism, Azerbaijan at the same time infringes on the rights of ethnic minorities on its territory and from time to time accuses Russia of supporting the ideas of separatism in Azerbaijan. The unresolved problems of the divided Dagestani peoples pose a great danger in terms of destabilizing the situation on both sides of the border. Cases of oppression of ethnic Dagestanis in Azerbaijan are not isolated, even moreover, their analysis allows many Dagestanis to conclude that they were initiated by the official leadership of Azerbaijan and the existence of a special program for their assimilation. Social movements and individuals who oppose this process are persecuted by the leadership of both this country and its individual regions, intelligence services and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Along with persecution of the cultural and political structures of Dagestanis in Azerbaijan, there are also facts of violation of the basic rights and freedoms of ethnic Dagestanis. One of the most characteristic facts of this kind was the forced mobilization of Dagestan youth into the army with the aim of sending them to the Karabakh war. While Azerbaijani conscripts bought their way out of military service, Dagestani youth were often used as cannon fodder, placing them primarily on the front line. By the way, our fellow countrymen could not pay off the “army” even if they wanted to pay the same amount that other conscripts paid. Special military units were formed from ethnic Dagestanis, which were sent to the most dangerous and difficult sectors of the front. For example, there was a so-called Avar battalion that fought in the battles for the cities of Agdam and Shusha. Up to 20% of the officers who participated in the Karabakh war were Lezgins. Many Dagestanis, in particular Lezgins, Avars and Laks, served in the corps of Suret Huseynov, who fled to Russia in 1994 and was extradited by the Russian Government to Azerbaijan in March 1997. Interestingly, the rest of the significant figures on the political board of Azerbaijan loyal to the Dagestanis were killed shortly before Huseynov was extradited to Azerbaijan. Ali Antsukhsky, informal leader of the Avars, killed on February 26, 1996; popular academician and politician Ziya Buniyatov - February 21, 1997. “People's Academician,” as he was popularly called, spoke the Lezgin language and had family relations with the Avars. In both cases, the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Armenia left the facts of the murder of its colleagues even without a parliamentary investigation.

Let us note that Dagestan analysts believe that “the alleged distribution of Armenian weapons to the Lezgin population on the territory of Dagestan, incidents on the border, a terrorist attack in the Baku metro - all these are measures taken by the Azerbaijani special services in order to compromise both the Sadval movement itself and ideas he promotes. The goals of these actions in this case are quite transparent - to use the national movement “Sadval” to provoke the initial conflict, discredit the role of Armenia in South Caucasian politics” (Zagir Arukhov, “South Russian Review”, No. 5, 2001).

Regarding Lezgins convicted for political reasons, we note that their prosecution and trials in these cases began precisely with Heydar Aliyev’s coming to power. It began, or rather, with the removal of his possible competitor Suret Huseynov from power in 1994 in the course of strengthening his regime, or the “vertical of power” in Russian. The reign of presidents Ayaz Mutalibov and Abulfaz Elchibey passed with virtually no political repression. Although individual episodes took place, they did not turn into a system. It can be said with a high degree of confidence that one of the reasons for the widespread occurrence of political persecution (especially in the criminal legal sphere) is Aliyev’s coming to power in June 1993. In less than two years, many potential political opponents of Aliyev were eliminated in the country, dozens of trials were held in which hundreds of people were convicted for political reasons. Only according to official data, for 1995–1997. 683 people were convicted, “arrested for reasons of state security” and charged under Art. 57 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (“treason to the motherland”). We also add that, according to this article, terms of imprisonment range from 10 years to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. Without risking taking responsibility for identifying the degree of guilt of those under investigation, we provide brief characteristics of the most high-profile cases and lists of those convicted in them. There are different opinions regarding the assessment of the ability of the RA leadership to “steer” the State Council and the National Assembly of the Republic of Dagestan, and we would not like to take the liberty of confirming the existence of such a state of affairs. Some analysts are inclined to believe that evidence of Aliyev’s influence on some Russian politicians did occur. For example, Maxim Kalashnikov, assessing the situation in Azerbaijan after the death of Heydar Aliyev, writes about “Aliyev’s well-established system of influence on senior officials in Russia” (“Azerbaijan before the storm.” Kompromat.ru 06/19/2001).

Along with the facts already described, infringement of the rights of ethnic Dagestanis is observed in personnel policy and in the financing of culture and education. Privatization processes led to even greater impoverishment of Sunni Muslims, residents of Northern Azerbaijan, mainly ethnic Dagestanis. At that time, Shiite Azerbaijanis, immigrants from Nakhichevan and Armenia, established control over almost all spheres of the country’s economy, which, apparently, was what the Sadval member wanted to emphasize in his letter. To be fair, it should be noted that in connection with Ilham Aliyev’s accession to the leadership of the country, there was a noticeable improvement in the situation of ethnic Dagestanis in Azerbaijan. There have been no recent repressions against ethnic Dagestanis, with the exception of those that were launched back in the 1990s. But at the same time, many of the problems described still exist today. ]§[

["Sadval" was driven into the basements... ]