Azerbaijan says Ukraine deported opposition blogger Isaev
Ukraine has deported Azerbaijani opposition blogger Elvin Isaev to Baku, Azerbaijan's State Migration Service has reported.
Censor.NET reports citing Azerbaijan migration service.
Isaev was arrested under a Baku court ruling on December 14. The Azerbaijani government statement doesn't say on what grounds he was arrested and what charges he is facing.
"Elvin Isaev, a citizen of the Republic of Azerbaijan, born in 1980, was deported to Azerbaijan on December 12, 2019, for the violation of immigration laws in Ukraine," the migration service said in a report on December 15.
Kyiv has not yet commented on the situation.
Isaev had lived in Russia since 1998 where as a blogger he criticized the Azerbaijani president and called him a "dictator," while also writing about corruption in his home country.
Isaev was granted Russian citizenship three years later. However, a court in St. Petersburg on August 26 ruled to strip him of Russian citizenship and expel him. Isaev was subsequently placed in a temporary jail for foreign citizens.
His deportation to Azerbaijan in September was suspended based on an interim measure of the European Court of Human Rights called "Rule 39." He moved to Ukraine that same month.
Ukrainian media started reporting about Isaev's disappearance in Kyiv on December 12.
