Azerbaijan, Baku / Тrend corr K. Zarbaliyeva / The reports regarding the start of a hunger strike by a group of prisoners in Gobustan Prison has been confirmed.
Five convicts went on a hunger strike on 13 September, the PR head of the Penitentiary Service, Mehman Sadigov, reported to Trend. The convicts applied to the head of the prison requesting their term of life imprisonment to be reduced to 15 years.
According to Sadigov, the problem of the convicts found a juridical solution. The Constitutional Court decided to consider this issue in the first court instance. He disproved reports of pressure exerted upon the convicts by the administration of the prison. Reports of electricity and water in the cells being stopped are false, he said.
The relatives of the prisoners reported 10 convicts went on hunger strike today.
Eighty-four convicts, whose death sentence was changed to life imprisonment, are imprisoned in the Gobustan Closed Prison. After the death sentence was abolished, the number increased to 128.
The inmates believe that their sentence should be replaced by the hardest punishment in the country that is 15 years' imprisonment.
The decision of the European Court on Human Rights says that replacement of the death sentence to life imprisonment corresponds with the European Convention. The European Court indicated that life imprisonment is easier than death sentence and cannot be considered a serious punishment.