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Pedro Agramunt (Spain, EPP/CD) and Joseph Debono Grech (Malta, SOC), Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) rapporteurs for monitoring of Azerbaijan, have expressed their deep concern at the Nasimi District Court’s decision to place Anar Mammadli, Chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center, in pre-trial detention, reads the statement on the official site of PACE.

The statement notes that Mammadli's organization co-operates with international human rights organizations including the Council of Europe. The rapporteurs have met him on several occasions during their fact-finding visits to Baku and at the Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg.

“This decision on pre-trial detention may raise suspicions about politically motivated justice,” said the co-rapporteurs.

According to them the fairness of judicial procedure and the lack of independence of justice, are serious concerns in Azerbaijan.

“We call on the Azerbaijan authorities to ensure that the legal proceedings are conducted transparently and in full compliance with Azerbaijan’s obligations under Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That includes a possible revision of the decision on pre-trial detention. We will follow very closely the whole procedure and will raise this question with the authorities during our planned visit early next year,” the statement reads.

On 9 of October Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDSC) implemented a monitoring of Azerbaijani presidential elections and recorded numerous law violations. In late October, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case and started investigations on EMDSC. In regard to this an alliance organization “European Platform for Democratic Elections” (EPDE) issued a statement which says that EPDE protests against the arbitrary and illegal prosecutions on EMDSC head Anar Mammadli. The alliance regrets for the measures the Azerbaijani government deploys against “independent, honest position of this organization in assessing the presidential elections in the country.”

On 9 October presidential elections took place in Azerbaijan in which the incumbent president Ilham Aliyev won the elections with almost 85% of the vote, thereby taking the post for the third time. The head of National Council of Democratic Forces Jamil Hasanli was second after Aliyev with 5.5% of vote. The opposition declared that it wouldn’t accept the election results because the elections were totally violated by ballot-box staffing, “carousel” etc. OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, U.S Department of State, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Britain and European Parliament called the elections undemocratic and inconsistent with OSCE standards.