Right to protection: How Azerbaijan fights for Farid Safarli Foreign Ministry statement

“Since the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry received information about Farid Safarli, together with the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Tabriz, work has been carried out with Iran to clarify the state of health, protect his rights and provide him with a lawyer. In this regard, official appeals were repeatedly sent to Iran and discussions were held on a regular basis.”

Spokesman Aykhan Hajizada said in a comment on the allegations that Azerbaijani citizen Farid Safarli, who was arrested on March 4 in Iran, was not provided with a lawyer in his trial, Caliber.Az reports.

“We kept in touch with the family and with Farid Safarli himself. The Azerbaijani Consulate General in Tabriz held meetings with Farid Safarli, they kept in touch with him by phone almost daily. Farid Safarli had the opportunity to maintain telephone contact with his family.

After repeated appeals to Iran over the organization of work to protect the rights of our citizen, in accordance with Iranian law and the requirements of the judicial process, information about several lawyers of the opposite side was provided to the family of Farid Safarli by our Consulate General in Tabriz. It was noted that the involvement of a lawyer living in Azerbaijan in the process is not provided for by Iranian legislation.

Although a request was addressed to the Iranian side about the dates of the court hearings and about the participation of officials of our Consulate General in them, Iran did not respond to our requests, and participation in the court hearings became impossible. In addition, despite our appeals, the accused was also not provided with an interpreter.

At the same time, it was established that during the court session on July 19, the charge of “espionage,” brought against Safarli, was replaced by the charge of “intention to commit espionage”.

Currently, work is underway to ensure that Farid Safarli's family visits their son,” A. Hajizada added.