Azerbaijan: Writer Rafiq Tagi dies in hospital following violent attack.

24 November 2011: PEN International is shocked to learn of the death of Rafiq Tagi, an Azeri writer and long standing critic of political Islam. The 61-year-old author died after suffering multiple stab wounds in an attack in the Azeri capital on 19 November. He had long been receiving death threats for his criticism of Iran. He died in hospital. PEN International sends its condolences to Tagi’s family and colleagues, and urges the Azeri authorities to do its utmost to find Tagi’s killers and bring them to justice.

Doctors are reported to be puzzled as to why Tagi died when, just a short while before he was apparently making a good recovery after emergency surgery. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), just an hour before he died, Tagi said: “My condition is difficult and stable … but it is not worsening”. Doctors say that they checked on their patient just 10 minutes before he died and had seen no reason for concern. Writers who had visited Tagi had earlier expressed concern at what they saw as insufficient security for a patient against whom death threats had been made.

In another interview with RFE/RL, from his hospital bed two days after the assault, Tagi said that he thought that the attack could have been linked to an article that he had published on the broadcaster’s Azerbaijani service entitled ‘Iran and the Inevitability of Globalisation”. RFE/RL reports that Tagi had criticised Iran for its attempts to export the Islamic revolution into Azerbaijan and ridiculed Tehran’s threats against Azerbaijan which Iran sees as being overly close to the USA and Israel. More on Azeri Iran relations.

Rafiq Tagi first came to PEN International’s attention when he was arrested on 1 November 2006 for an article comparing European and Islamic traditions. The piece, entitled ‘Europe and Us’ suggested that Islam had hindered progress in Muslim states such as Azerbaijan. The article led to outrage among Muslim conservative groups and the subsequent arrest of Tagi and Samir Sadagatoglu the editor of the newspaper Sanat in which the article was published. They were charged under Article 283 of the Azeri criminal code with inciting national, racial and religious enmity. Tagi was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 but was freed under a presidential amnesty later that year.

Tagi at the time strongly denied that this article had insulted Islam. However, it sparked protests not only in Azerbaijan, but also in neighbouring Iran, and by late November Tagi’s situation deteriorated even further when the Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, based in Iran, issued a fatwa (religious decree) ordering that the two men be executed. Yet not all Azeri Muslims supported the fatwa, and counter demonstrations by Muslim groups who supported Tagi’s right to express his views, and added their concern about undue of conservative religious groups over the country’s affairs. The Azeri Prosecutor General’s office made clear its opposition to the death threats in a press statement which said “We live in a constitutional state and all issues should be solved by law” adding that the death threats were “unacceptable” and that police protection had been provided to the two men and their families. Tagi was later to joke in an interview with Index on Censorship’s Natasha Schmidt that the Azeri government had had him arrested to “save his life”. However the death threats never ceased.

A courageous, and by all accounts, humorous man, Tagi was a controversial figure, writing articles that frequently clashed with public opinion, and even turned his ire on fellow writers, such as Samed Vurgun Azerbaijan’s leading poet and chair of the Azerbaijan Writers Union and others. To read more go to Eurasianet.org.

Please send appeals:
Calling for an immediate and impartial investigation into the death of Rafiq Tagi and calling for those responsible for the violent attack to be brought to justice.
Expressing concerns that Tagi may have been killed as a result of his legitimate expression on his right to freedom of expression and calling on the Azeri authorities to do their utmost to ensure the protection of writers facing persecution as a result of their work.

Send appeals to:
President Ilham Aliyev
Office of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic
19 Istiqlaliyyat Street
Baku AZ1066
Azerbaijan
Fax: + 994 12 492 0625

Minister of Internal Affairs
Lt.-Gen. Ramil Usubov
Ministry of Internal Affairs
Husu Hajiyev Street 7, 370005 Baku
Azerbaijan
Fax: + 994 12 492 45 90

Please also copy to the Azeri representative in your own country

For further details contact Sara Whyatt at the Writers in Prison Committee London Office: PEN International, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER UK Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7405 0338 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7405 0339 e-mail: sara.whyatt@pen-international.org