UR professors, administrators write president of Azerbaijan about jailed graduate

Seventeen University of Richmond professors and administrators have written a letter to the president of Azerbaijan seeking his intervention in the case of a UR graduate who was beaten and arrested for what his supporters say are political reasons.

Adnan Hajizada, a 2005 UR graduate, and another Azeri political activist were arrested July 8 and charged with hooliganism after they reported being attacked in a restaurant by two strangers.

Among those signing the letter was Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, chairman of the Department of Political Science, from which Hajizada got his degree.

Wang said he received word yesterday from a former visiting professor to UR from Turkey that a lower court has sentenced the pair to prison and a hearing on their appeal has been postponed.

The letter to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev notes that Hajizada attended UR on "full scholarship -- a testament of our belief in his promise and his country's future. As Adnan's former teachers, we remember fondly Adnan's time here as a student."

Letters of appeal were also sent to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th.

The letters say the professors remember Hajizada, an Azeri native, "as an outstandingly polite and respectful gentleman; it is hard to imagine he would engage in acts of 'hooliganism.'"

-- Karin Kapsidelis