BAKU, Azerbaijan — Several hundred people have rallied in the center of Azerbaijan’s capital in protest at the death earlier this month of military conscript.
Many participants at Saturday’s rally, which was organized through social media, held up photos of Jeyhun Gubabov, who authorities said died of heart failure. Gubabov’s mother said he was the victim of physical mistreatment.
Police ordered demonstrators to disperse and later forcibly broke up the gathering. Officials said several people were detained, but gave no specific number.
Anti-government rallies take place from time to time in the oil-rich former Soviet nation, and the meetings are almost always immediately broken up by police. Unusually, this meeting was organized entirely on online social media and involved none of the country’s few embattled opposition parties.