Amid a crackdown on dissent and independent media in Azerbaijan, police in the western district of Daskasan on March 19 detained the chairman of the local branch of the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXCP), Sahib Mammadzada, for allegedly possessing illegal drugs.
The AXCP said in a statement that Mammadzada's detention was politically motivated.
Also on March 19, the Baku Court Of Appeals rejected the appeal of another AXCP activist, Elnur Hasanov, against his pretrial detention. Hasanov, who was arrested in November for alleged illegal drugs possession, had requested a transfer to house arrest.
Hasanov insists that the case against him is politically motivated.
Prosecutors on March 18 asked a court in Baku to sentence another AXCP member, Elxan Aliyev, to seven years in prison on charges of fraud and forgery, which Aliyev and his supporters have rejected as politically motivated.
At least five AXCP members are currently serving prison terms on various charges that the party calls politically motivated.
Another court in the Azerbaijani capital on March 19 extended pretrial detention for the editor of the Kanal 13 independent online TV station, Aziz Orucev, and reporter Samo Eminov to at least two more months.
Orucev was arrested in November on a charge of illegal property construction. He was later additionally charged with smuggling.
Eminov was detained in late December on smuggling charges.
Both Orucev and Eminov maintain their innocence, calling the cases against them retaliation for their investigative reports.
Critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's government say authorities in the oil-rich Caspian Sea state frequently seek to silence dissent by jailing opposition activists, journalists, and civil-society advocates on trumped-up charges.
Azerbaijani officials have insisted that there are no political prisoners in the tightly controlled South Caucasus state.
Aliyev has ruled Azerbaijan with an iron fist since 2003, taking over from his father, Heydar Aliyev, who served as president for a decade.