Azerbaijani student sentenced to 400 hours of corrective labor for ‘expressing doubt in feat of national hero

An Azerbaijani court has sentenced Narmin Shahmarzade, a psychology student, to 400 hours of corrective labor for a post on Facebook, in which she expressed doubt in the feat of a national hero of Azerbaijan, Mubariz Ibrahimov, Jam News reported.

The post, written in December 2018, caused a flurry of public indignation in society. Many demanded she be punished, and MP Musa Guliyev proposed to bring her to trial, the source said.

The court received several complaints, but in the end they accepted the complaint only from the mother of Mubariz Ibrahimov and launched the case against Shahmarzade, who lodged an appeal but was refused.

To remind, Mubariz Ibrahimov was a member of Azerbaijani subversive group that passed the Artsakh-Azerbaijani Line of Contact from Chailu village in 2011 and killed 4 Armenian servicemen. In the aftermath of the cross firing Mubariz Ibrahimov was killed. He was then declared an Azerbaijani hero, a school was renamed after him, a book was published dedicated to him.

In the Facebook post in question, Narmin wrote: “if Mubariz had survived and returned back, then, most likely, a war crime case would have been opened. Because he crossed the border without an order. In fact, the man we call the hero has endangered public policy.”