Rasim Aliyev's colleagues do not rule link between attack and his professional activities
Tatiana Kryuchkina, a colleague of the deceased Azerbaijani journalist Rasim Aliyev at the NGO "Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety" (IRFS), does not rule out that he had been beaten up out of revenge for his journalistic activities.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Aliyev was beaten up by a group of unidentified persons and was taken to City Clinical Centre No. 1 of Baku with fractures of several ribs in the evening on August 8. The journalist associated the attack with his criticism of Djavid Guseinov, a player of the Football Club (FC) "Gabala" after its match with the FC "Apollon" from Larnaka. Tonight his state worsened; and the journalist died. A joint investigation team was set up by the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Azerbaijan.
On his page, Rasim Aliyev posted a video with an interview, in which when asked by a reporter from Cyprus why after the match Guseinov raised the flag of Turkey, the footballer said "Turks are my friends" and demonstrated an "indecent gesture" to the reporter. In his comment, Aliyev wrote that he would not want "such rude and misbehaving footballer to represent his country in the pitches of Europe." Later, the footballer called him and explained that his gesture was misinterpreted, and "he actually meant that Azerbaijan and Turkey are friendly countries."
Tatiana Kryuchkina, a member of the IRFS, does not exclude that "apart from the revenge of the football player," there may be other reasons for the attack on the journalist.
"The pro-governmental propaganda is forming the opinion about the 'footballer's revenge.' They are persistently present Rasim as a sports journalist. This is absolutely not true," Tatiana Kryuchkina, a member of the IRFS, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "Rasim was a reporter and covered socio-political events. Moreover, after Emin Guseinov (Azerbaijani rights defender, – note of the "Caucasian Knot") had, since August 2014, to hide from unjustified prosecution, the general meeting of the IRFS elected Rasim to be the head of the organization."
When asked whether the attack on Aliyev could be revenge for the activities of the IRFS, Tatiana Kryuchkina stressed that she could assert anything for sure.
"I can only note that on July 25 in the social network 'Odnoklassniki' Rasim received threats related to his work for the IRFS," she said.
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.