Adviser to the chairman of the opposition Popular Front of Azerbaijan Party (PFAP), Mammad Ibrahim, has been placed in solitary confinement. Two days before his scheduled release from prison, Ibrahim’s family was told that prison guards found a knife under his pillow.

“This was a provocation against my father undertaken two days before the end of his prison term,” the politician’s son, Turan Ibrahim, told Caucasian Knot. “They don't want to release him from prison."

Three years ago, on 30 September 2015, Mammad Ibrahim was arrested on charges of hooliganism. On 15 March 2016, he was convicted and sentenced to 3 years in prison including time served.

During his time in prison, Ibrahim’s family says that his eyesight has deteriorated and he is in need of an operation, although the Health Ministry denies it. Fellow political prisoner Afgan Mukhtarli told Meydan TV by phone that Ibrahim has started a hunger strike in solitary confinement.