Rostov-on-Don: Azerbaijanis commemorate killed ISIS-fighters under guise of “mourning flash mob” for Aghdam events

A “mourning flash mob” organised by Azerbaijanis in Rostov-on-Don to commemorate Aghdam events of 1992 ended with the police detaining its participants on charges under the article “Violation of the established order of organising or holding an assembly, meeting, demonstration, rally or picket,” Haqqin.az reports.

The participants were taken to the nearest police department. Vagif Mustafayev, the head of Azerbaijani Community, a regional NGO, was summoned to the police station. He started shouting at the participants of the flash mob blaming them in disorderly behaviour, mess, and above all, in organising a self-initiated action without agreeing with him, Aslan Mehdiyev, a participant of the “mourning flash mob” said, according to Haqqin.az.

Mehdiyev was taken to the Centre for Countering Extremism, where he was accused of inciting interethnic hatred. Vagif Mustafayev told the website that he was contacted from the Centre for Countering Extremism and told that the detained Azerbaijanis had been holding a flash mob to commemorate killed ISIS-fighters under the guise of the “memory of killed Khojaly residents.” “This is not a flash mob any more but real extremism,” Mustafayev said.

Notably, there are two rivalling Azerbaijani diaspora organisations operating in Rostov-on-Don. One of them is headed by Shakir Allahverdiyev, and the other by Vagif Mustafayev. In his historical homeland, Mustafayev is “accused” of “being married to an Armenian woman and being friends with Ashot Hayrapetyan, the director of the Centre for International Partnership.”

On February 26, 1992, during the war in Karabakh, around 200 to 300 people (according to Human Rights Watch, and 600 according to the version propagated by Azerbaijan) were killed in unknown circumstances near the city of Aghdam. They have been deliberately withheld by the Azerbaijani authorities in the midst of the military actions. Population of the village of Khojaly, which was one of the firing points shooting at the blockaded Stepanakert (among five others) was kept in the village for months by force and was not evacuated by the authorities of Azerbaijan deliberately, in order to use them as human shields later.

Residents of Khojaly coming out through the humanitarian corridor, that the self-defence forces of NKR had left open, freely passed more than 10 km and reached the Aghdam city controlled by the Azerbaijani troops. Later, not far from the positions of Azerbaijani troops dead bodies of the villagers were found. The exact death toll remains unknown as the official Baku publishes data contradicting each other. Parliamentary Commission investigating the tragic death of the civilians at Aghdam city was dissolved by the order of Heydar Aliyev, the investigative materials are kept secret.