Despite significant international outcry from leading human rights and freedom of expression advocates, detained video bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli today went on trial in Baku. Now facing an additional charge of assault, the two youth activists face up to 5 years in prison if convicted.
Hajizade and Milli were attacked in downtown Baku at the beginning of July, but when the two activists reported the incident to the police they were instead arrested and charged with attacking their assailants.
The arrests came soon after Hajizade's OL! youth movement and Milli's AN Network posted a video mocking the authorities for importing donkeys and introducing legislation intended to restrict the activities of civil society in the oil-rich country.
But, if the Azerbaijani government hoped that the action against the two activists would silence their voices, it instead appears to have achieved the opposite.
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