Azerbaijani who was attacked by OMON in Russia: We were tortured and threatened to be sent to war

Around 05:00 on June 27, OMON officers (mobile special purpose unit, a special division of the Russian Guard) raided the homes of Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Muhammad Safarov, a member of the attacked family, told Oxu.Az in detail about everything that happened.

According to him, masked men broke down the apartment door with a specially prepared metal tool:

"At the very beginning, I heard a knock on the door. Mom said it was probably the local police officer. Looking through the peephole, I saw about 20 people in masks. They said they would count to three, and if we didn't open the door, they would break it down. Before I could open it, they kicked it in and burst inside.

After entering the apartment, the security forces laid everyone on the floor, pressed their feet on our backs and took off their belts with metal elements. They completely undressed me, my brother and father and began to brutally beat us with belts. No one explained anything to us. For about 40 minutes they tormented us in our own home. Then all three of us, dragging along the ground, were hauled to a GAZelle minibus and thrown nearby. As a result, I twisted my foot and told them I couldn't walk. They started beating me again, lamenting that I should get up or they would kill me. They grabbed all three of us by the scruff of the neck, dragged us into the car, threw us face down on the floor and pressed us down."

The victim added that the beatings did not stop even on the way to the police station.

"My brother and I were placed in one cell, my father in another. Immediately after that, they began to pass electric current through our bodies. They shocked us with electricity, beat us, tortured us. They asked if we knew Pashayev, talked about what happened in 2001. They didn't ask anything else, just tormented us. I told them I was born in 1997 and during that incident, I was four years old. But they kept insisting that I could have heard something from my father's conversations, and that I should confess.

They stated that they would either beat us to death or send us to war in Ukraine. I informed them that in 2018 I had served in the military as a Russian citizen. They replied that it didn't matter. After that, they continued to shock us with electricity again. After some time, my brother and I were separated, and I was laid down in the corridor. They hit me on the head, body, stomach and walked over me," shared M. Safarov.

After this, according to Muhammad, he was threatened once more with being sent to the combat zone:

"They were preparing documents to send my brother and me to the front. They said either I would die in Ukraine, or they would beat me to death at the station. At that moment, the chairman of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg, Shahin Shikhlinskiy, arrived and literally saved us. Otherwise, we would have been sent to war. Shahin muallim managed to negotiate and rescue my brother and me. Now it's difficult for me to walk."