New detailed facts surfaced regarding the police raid to the queer space situated Baku. According to a recent account shared with Qıy Vaar!, 106 people were detained at the police station of Nasimi district for 12-13 hours with no legal basis.
The community members state that the detainees were not allowed to call their family members. Parents visiting the police station were blatantly insulted by police officers. The phrases like “your kids are faggots, we have done well” directed toward the parents are clear instances of hate speech and inhumane treatment against our community.
According to some of the detainees, the police sought to force them to make statements against and falsely accuse one another. Those attempts are nothing but means of fabricating accusations outside of proper administrative offence procedures via pressure.
It is stated that, 106 individuals were left to dehydrate and starve in cold weather with only a bottle of water and a single loaf of bread and with no permit to use a washroom.
One of the detainees describes their experiences to Qıy Vaar! as following:
“I was there too, there were 106 of us. I was traumatized by what I saw, and I cannot forget it. When I close my eyes, I am haunted by the faces of the police officers. No matter how much I begged, I was not allowed to use the toilets. I was without a coat in that cold, I wet myself, and the urine froze on my pants.”
We, as the Qıy Vaar! collective, declare our solidarity with the sufferers and monitoring on the incident. We know the aggressors. The main offender is the system ignoring our rights, neglecting to pass anti-discrimination laws, forcing the LGBTQ+ community out of their spaces and pressuring them into being invisible. We call the state institutions and the public to address the aforementioned violations of human rights. The Ministry of International Affairs must start an urgent, independent, and transparent investigation for the claims of violence against the 106 sufferers, inhumane treatment, illegal detainment, bribery, sexual assault, and torture.
The systematic abuse against the queer community ongoing for years must be brought to an end, and such police raids must be guaranteed not to happen again.
The spaces,
The nights,
The streets belong to us!
