I, Natig Isgender oglu Isbatov, applied for asylum from Azerbaijan to the Netherlands in 2017, but they did not grant me asylum.
On 9 July 2019, I was deported from the Netherlands to Azerbaijan with my family. Three days later, I was arrested by plainclothes police and sentenced to 30 days in prison. My political activity in the Netherlands and my protests against the Azerbaijani regime, led by Ilham Aliyev, were the reasons for my incarceration. For days, I was tortured in prison.
They cited my actions in the Netherlands as the reason for their ill-treatment. They asked me questions about who I was in contact with and who was financing me. I was not close to anyone in the Netherlands. I just spoke with one or two people over the phone and found out the location of the protest. The speeches there were only about the government.
No one believed me when I informed them that if I returned to Azerbaijan, I would be imprisoned by the authorities. My wife even decided to take her own life so that we wouldn’t be sent back. Despite this, we were transported back to Azerbaijan, where we were told there was no threat to us.
My arrest was made public. My brother and other people, Amnesty International, and other organizations in the Netherlands brought this issue to the public’s attention. After the severe pressure on the Azerbaijani government, the prison director called me to his room and told me that the governance had forgiven me. On the day I was arrested, he was telling me something completely different. He even threatened to detain me for a long time and eliminate me. However, due to the publicity of the case, I was released after 30 days in prison.
My lawyer, Zibeyda Sadigova, objected to this illegal detention, but it was turned down. The last court applied to the European Court of Human Rights. For no apparent reason, my exit from the country was prohibited by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. My lawyer, Zibeyda Sadigova, filed a complaint with the relevant institutional bodies about this, but to no avail. She even applied to the Yasamal District Court but was rejected. The Baku Court of Appeal upheld this, which then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. I wrote letters to all government agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I asked them about – “You prohibit me to leave the country because of what crime? I have an autistic child that requires medical treatment in Turkey.” I said that if you didn’t remove my exit ban, I would protest in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and burn my family and myself. I was then told to contact the management, and they would inform me later. They said there was no need to protest or commit suicide. After that, our exit barrier from the country was lifted.
The following year in early February, my family and I traveled to Turkey to treat my child in a rehabilitation center. In the same year, with the spread of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the centers closed, and the global pandemic began. International travel was no longer possible. On our way back to Azerbaijan, the Turkish-Georgian border guards did not allow us to enter the country. As a reason, they said that the Azerbaijani government does not accept us.

I made video appeals from the Turkish border through the media. My appeals were also broadcasted on Kanal13. We had to spend that night at the border. After a very long time, the Azerbaijani side was forced to accept more than a hundred people who left across the border.
Later on, I continued to work as a journalist in Azerbaijan. I video documented human rights violations and other social problems in the country and broadcasted them to the public. The parliamentary elections had begun. At the same time, I noticed the irregularities of selection in many districts and recorded them. Meanwhile, the residents of Baku’s Yasamal district, known as “Sovetsky,” were protesting against the illegal demolition of their homes. And some of them were protesting in front of the Ministry of Finance. I was doing my duty due to my job by recording these issues. At that time, I was exposed to violence by four police officers, and my phones were confiscated. The video recordings I took were deleted from my camera and phone.
They took my phones and beat me. It was about the end of February. Less than a few weeks later, on April 9, I was arrested. My journalist colleague Sevinj Sadigov and I were caught by the police while filming in the same place. The issue was criticized by large organizations. Here, too, I was sentenced to one month in prison on two counts for violating the rules of police resistance and pandemic. After the arrest, I continued my activities. Everyone had high hopes in prison. Ilham Aliyev was carrying out “reforms”. Two or three bribe-takers were arrested for embezzling state property. The state was the first to embezzle people’s money. Wounded soldiers who took part in the war were not given the status of disability, they were annoyed, some of our martyrs were not given the status of martyrs, most of them were not given. Eleven of our martyrs were buried in the swamp, which angered the families of martyrs. protested for months
In front of the Presidential Administration, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Milli Majlis, the State Security Service, the Yasamal District Executive Power and the Ministry of Defense, I repeatedly complained to the public about these injustices, human rights violations. I managed to change his grave. I shared the problem of martyrs’ families with our veterans on channel13, No Corruption 7GUN.az news portals. I was persecuted many times. The fact that the family came and threatened my mother tells my mother that I am her husband I burned it, I did it well, he says I will burn the whole family, but the police do not arrest that person, why was it ordered. because this man committed this crime by order. During the hot summer months of last year, there were water problems in the villages of our region in the northern part of the country
Imagine that there is no water for animals to drink. For many years, there have been problems with roads and water health centers in our village. The municipality is just selling land. I shared such problems on my news site. They saw that they could not silence me. They sent me messages through journalist colleagues. Someone said they would arrest you. I said no. I didn’t take it seriously. After these words, I became very scared. This time, if they arrest me, they will not resist the police. I asked a journalist colleague I knew for help, he asked me to refer him to a man. Lithuania issued a worker visa. I got a visa.
An employee said that an operation was planned for Natig and he would be arrested. They have been watching me for several months. There are witnesses to stand in front of me. When he told me, I was under a lot of stress, I was scared, he told me, I have two days to escape from this country. I paid for crossing the border, I gave it. I stayed in Georgia for two days. I asked my friend to buy me a plane ticket to Vilnius. I came to Vilnius from Poland to Germany by bus. I came to Amsterdam by train from Berlin. I didn’t have a chance to wait, I didn’t have a visa to Lithuania, I wanted to get a visa to the Netherlands or some other way. I had only one idea, how to leave the country Who leaves his country, family, children and comes to another country for pleasure? He leaves my family alone in danger? I was forced to take this path. The Azerbaijani government already knows where I am and they are trying to bring me back. They have committed crimes against me. I came out and asked for asylum in the Netherlands. I am told that you have a dub in Lithuania as if nothing had happened. I think the Azerbaijani government will try to deport me from Lithuania to Azerbaijan by any means. How do they do it in Germany? They deport those who are politically active. I thought they would give me asylum in Lithuania if they made a double decision. But they ignore the mistake they made.