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BAKU: A young opposition activist was jailed for two and half years on drugs charges in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Wednesday after using Facebook to call for an uprising like those in the Arab world.
Jabbar Savalan, 20, was the first activist to be imprisoned since government opponents began a series of thwarted protests this year in the mainly Muslim state which is an important supplier of oil and gas to the West.
“Despite the fact that I was thrown into jail, I choose freedom,” Savalan told the court.
The student activist was arrested for alleged opium possession in February after posting a message on the social networking website calling for a “day of rage” - a reference to mass protests in the Middle East.
“I think that the severity of the sentence is connected to my client's political activities,” said his lawyer Anar Gasimov.
Savalan, a supporter of the Azerbaijani Popular Front party, alleged that he was detained because turmoil in the Middle East worried the government in the energy-rich republic.
Savalan's lawyer said that seven of his supporters were detained at the court in the city of Sumgayit after shouting out angry slogans when the judge passed sentence.
Rights group Amnesty International said that the activist's imprisonment showed how far the authorities were willing to go to silence dissenting voices.
“Jabbar Savalan's conviction - and the recent arrests of other protest organisers - show how fragile the environment for freedom of expression in Azerbaijan is right now,” said John Dalhuisen of Amnesty International in a statement.
Azerbaijan attracted widespread international criticism after two young bloggers who used Facebook and YouTube to campaign for democratic change spent more than a year in jail for “hooliganism” before being released in November 2010.
Several small protest rallies this year have been dispersed by riot police, who detained dozens of activists, including a small child who was briefly held with her mother last month after shouting out the word “Freedom!”
Opposition supporters complain of a lack of democratic rights and freedom of speech in Azerbaijan. But the governing party of President Ilham Aliyev says that a discredited and unpopular opposition has been trying to stir up confrontation which could damage the country, and analysts believe that widespread political unrest is unlikely.
