Azeri rights activist leaves on board Swiss FM plane
A prominent Azeri rights activist, who had holed up in the Swiss embassy in Baku for 10 months, has left the country aboard an aircraft transporting the foreign minister of Switzerland.
Emin Huseynov arrived in Switzerland late Friday on a plane with Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who had attended the opening ceremony of the European Games in the central Asian country.
Huseynov, a journalist and critic of the Azeri government, was given refuge at the Swiss embassy for the past ten months for humanitarian reasons.
Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Marc Crevoisier said Saturday that the rights activist was given refuge because he feared for his life.
According to Crevoisier, Huseynov was allowed to leave the country following "numerous conversations" between the Swiss foreign minister and Azeri officials.
In February, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmet Haciyev said Huseynov was wanted for “illegal entrepreneurship and tax evasion since last August.”
A fierce critic of the Baku government, the 35-year-old Huseynov is the director of the Baku-based Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety, a media rights group.
Huseynov has until September to apply for asylum.
Many activists and independent journalists have been thrown behind bars in Azerbaijan since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
AR/HSN/HMV
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