Rafiq Tağı

Rafiq Tagi (* August 5, 1950 in Xoşçobanlı, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union Rafiq Nəzir oglu Tağıyev, † November 23, 2011 in Baku ) was an Azerbaijani writer, journalist and doctor. He worked for the magazine Sanat up by the police in 2007 together with the editor of Sanat, Samir Sadagatoglu, arrested after the article "Europe and we " published in 2006, is said to have treated critically Islam and the Prophet Mohammed; in the context of which it was accused of incitement to religious hatred. On November 19, 2011 Tagi was stabbed by an unknown assailant with six stab wounds, four days later, he succumbed to his injuries.

Biography

Tagi was born in the village Xoşçobanlı in southern Azerbaijan. He graduated from the Azerbaijan Medical University, Baku and worked as a doctor in rural areas of the country. He later received a diploma in cardiology by the First Moscow State Medical University IM Sechenow. From 1990 he worked in a hospital emergency in Baku.

In addition, Tagi was also active as an author. His membership in the Writers' Union of Azerbaijan was lifted after 16 years after he wrote a critical essay on the Soviet- Azerbaijani poet Səməd vurgun in which he analyzed the social and political views.

Another article with the name " Europe and we " ( Avropa və biz ), which was published in 2006 in the journal Sanat, in which he claimed, among other things, Islam and democracy are incompatible. This article provoked protests in Iran (before the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran ) and Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani moved on to issue a fatwa against Tagi, in which he called for his death. Lankarani accused Tagi to have the prophet Muhammad insulted and mocked Islam.

As a result of the article was Tagi as well as the editor of the magazine, Samir Sadagatoglu, arrested and sentenced to three and four years in prison. Finally spent Tagi and Sadagatoglu only eight months in prison.

Rafiq Tagi died on 23 November 2011 following a knife attack from a stranger four days earlier, which attacked him on the way home.