Report: Council of Europe must speak up against crackdown in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan should refrain from using spurious criminal charges to put its critics behind bars, says a new report by IMS’ partner the London-based ARTICLE 19, published with the endorsement of IMS under the International Partnership Group on Azerbaijan
According to the report, the Azerbaijani authorities unleashed a vicious attack on human rights defenders in 2014. The report highlights the increase in the number of people imprisoned for expressing their critical opinions peacefully, whether on paper, on the Internet or on the streets. Independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the media or other critical voices offline and online are being removed from public life.
“The authorities should immediately and unconditionally release those detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, and not target those speaking uncomfortable truths, either at home or at international level, including at the Council of Europe,” said ARTICLE 19 publishing the report.
“We are concerned that those raising the issue of political prisoners at the Council of Europe are specifically targeted, and such reprisals are incompatible with the human rights standards the Azerbaijani authorities claim to adhere to,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Director of Programmes of ARTICLE 19.
“The Council of Europe, the key human rights institution in Europe, needs to speak up and call for the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. With Azerbaijan as the chair of its Committee of Ministers, the integrity and accountability of the whole institution is at stake,” said Diaz-Jogeix.
The discrepancy between Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the country’s appalling record on human rights, particularly the right to freedom of expression, is a sad irony. In the international arena, the Azerbaijani government pretends to respect human rights, whereas it is clearly engaged in a campaign to repress any voices that expose violations of human rights, including those who speak at international fora, such as the Council of Europe, said ARTICLE 19.
President Aliyev claims that “press freedom is fully ensured”, but according to ARTICLE 19, that is not the case in today’s Azerbaijan. The recent attack on the journalist and human rights defender Ilgar Nasibov in Naxçivan will be a litmus test in demonstrating the Azerbaijani authorities’ political will to investigate the attack and bring both the perpetrators and instigators to justice, said the London-based Freedom of Expression group.
“Without the resolve to establish the truth in such cases, there will inevitably be an increase in the already acute self-censorship, to add to the almost total lack of press freedom in Azerbaijan.”
