Police in Russia's North Ossetia have launched an inquiry following a campaign of online harassment targeting women through the Telegram channel Kavkazskaya Obshchina ("Caucasian Community"). The channel's administrators published women's personal information, insulted them and issued threats of violence over behaviour they claimed violated Caucasian traditions.
Faig Nagiyev, a member of the opposition Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), has been sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention. The party stated that this is the third such incident against its activists in the past week, calling it political persecution.
Nagiyev has been charged with administrative offenses, including "petty hooliganism" and "disobeying police." Similar charges were previously brought against other PFPA activists, Farid Guliyev and Valishan Hasanov, who were also detained under administrative law.
According to PFPA press service spokesman Tezekhan Miralamli, all charges are politically motivated. He stated that the activists were arrested for using their personal vehicles to provide transportation escort for PFPA leader Ali Karimli. Since March of this year, the number of PFPA members arrested on administrative or criminal charges for accompanying Kerimli to public events has reached 11.
Earlier, Ali Kerimli condemned the persecution of activists who served as his drivers or bodyguards on a voluntary basis.