Azerbaijan LGBT rights activist commits suicide: “This country and this world are not for me”...

[…] Isa says that, the pressure from the family leads most LGBT (lesbian, gay,bisexual, transsexual) to suicide. 

[extract from interview with Isa Sahmarli, October 2013]

Reports say that 20 years old Isa Sahmarli, Azeri LGBT rights activist, head of Azad LGBT group, committed suicide today. According to friends, he hanged himself with the rainbow flag. This video  that impossible to watch shows unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate him.


According to RFE/RL, he left a suicide note on his Facebook page reading: “I am leaving you. God bless you. This country and this world are not for me. I am going to be happy now. Tell my mother I loved her very much. I blame you all for my death. This world is not colorful enough for my colors. Farewell."

In an interview posted in October 2013, Isa commented on discrimination and abuses faced by LGBT people in Azerbaijan:

His family doesn’t want to accept that Isa is homosexual. Is also admits that it is difficult for his family to change mind. “ Though psychologists explained everything to my family ,they still accept it as illness.” Isa says that, the pressure from the family leads most LGBT (lesbian, gay,bisexual, transsexual) to suicide.

…And how many such cases go unknown or unreported, and not only in Azerbaijan…

Sadly, at times it’s such tragic events that generate reaction strong enough to shake the society to its core with changes in both attitudes and rights. Unfortunately, I do not think we will see Stonewall any time soon in Azerbaijan.