Lawyer: Violence elevated to state policy in Russia

International law is not important for Russia, as violence has been elevated to state policy there, Lawyer Alimammad Nuriyev said in an interview with Report.

The lawyer said that the operation carried out in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg against the Safarov family, originally from Aghdam, and other Azerbaijanis is an act of ethnic persecution under the guise of fighting crime:

"During the incident, the brothers Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov were brutally killed. Dozens of people were violently detained. Several people were hospitalized with serious injuries. Russia avoided reporting to Azerbaijan and the international community on the events that took place on legal grounds."

He believes that one of the reasons for this incident is selective repression and ethnic discrimination:

"Russia has been exerting pressure on migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia for a long time. There are serious reasons to believe that these incidents are committed on ethnic grounds. The Azerbaijani diaspora has been an organized community in Russia for many years. There have been biased approaches by Russian structures in approaching the activities of that community. Many operations were carried out under the guise of a criminal hunt against the Azerbaijani community. Many were killed, and there were even cases when Russian traffic police chased Azerbaijanis driving vehicles and killed them with weapons."

Nuriyev said that the fact that Azerbaijanis are more economically active in Russia has created irritation in some institutions of this country:

"Our compatriots are achieving success there. This also creates jealousy in many institutions of Russia. At the same time, the growing critical spirit towards Russia after the Karabakh war has created irritation in the revanchist circles of this country. These raids can also be assessed as pressure on the Azerbaijani public."