Turkish authorities intend to deport Azerbaijani opposition figure and former MP Gultakin Hajibayli back to Baku, Hajibayli herself informed on Facebook.

Hajibayli was detained on November 29 in Istanbul. According to Meydan TV, after her detention she has been placed under administrative supervision under the category of “foreigners posing a threat to national security.”

The decision on her deportation was taken before a court ruling was issued, which, according to Hajibayli, indicates that it “has a political rather than a legal nature.”

“I still cannot believe that a state I consider my second homeland and that I have always supported and defended throughout my political activity can, in violation of the principles of law and justice, forcibly send me to [back] Azerbaijan, where I face arrest,” Hajibayli said in an appeal addressed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Gultakin Hajibayli links her persecution to a criminal case opened against Ramiz Mehdiyev, the former chief of the Azerbaijani presidential staff, in connection with which the chairman of the opposition Popular Front Party (AXCP) of Azerbaijan, Ali Karimli, was earlier arrested. Karimli was charged with actions aimed at the violent seizure of power in Azerbaijan.

In an interview with the RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani service, Hajibayli said she considers the accusations about her alleged ties to Mehdiyev to be “absurd.”