The Tbilisi City Court has decided to deport Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadigov to Azerbaijan.

This information was shared by Sadigov’s human rights defender, Tamta Mikeladze, director of the Social Justice Center.

“The court made the decision to deport Afgan Sadigov to Azerbaijan at 4 a.m.

During the hearing, judge Tornike Kochkiani did not grant any of our motions. The court did not even attach the European Court’s decision, which was mandatory for it to consider.

The court failed to take into account the fact that Afgan Sadigov’s wife and children have political asylum in Europe, and that a relevant country could also have granted him asylum. Accordingly, we argued that he should have been given the opportunity to leave the country voluntarily, and that the court should have allowed him this chance.

We were ready to submit the relevant documents in the shortest possible time, both to the court and to the Migration Department.

For all this time, it was precisely the Georgian Dream government that had prevented Afgan Sadigov from leaving Georgia, which is why it had previously been formally impossible for him to initiate asylum procedures.

I have not seen such a level of undermining of the rule of law and the convention framework in any case in recent years.

This is a catastrophe. This is a targeted special operation against this individual.

Take note: on April 1, Azerbaijan suspended criminal prosecution against him and informed Georgia.

On April 2, this information was delivered to Afgan Sadigov.

On April 3, the court lifted his bail and movement restrictions.

On April 4, Afgan Sadigov was detained and within a few hours will be handed over to Azerbaijan.

Everything was pre-planned and organized by two authoritarian regimes,” Mikeladze wrote on Facebook.