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Today, the Azerbaijani parliament adopted the Amnesty Act dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Heydar Aliyev. The act was passed with 114 votes "for" and will affect 9,000 people, of which 2,000 will be released from prison, the Azerbaijani information agency Turan writes and notes that the amnesty didn’t touch the political activists.

In particular, the following categories will be released: Women who have not committed serious crimes, and have committed less serious offenses; those who committed crimes before 18 years of age; invalids of the first and second groups; men who have reached 60 years of age; having the care of minor children and children with disabilities of the first and second groups; fighters for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan; refugees and displaced persons.

In 2007 and 2009, respectively, Azerbaijan accepted amnesty acts. However, human rights groups and representatives of the Bar are disappointed at the current amnesty because it does not give any solution to the problem of political prisoners.

As the lawyer Javad Javadov said, this amnesty, as the previous amnesty in 2007 and 2009, does not refer to people under investigation and those who have been brought before the court. It only affects those, in respect of which there was a final verdict.
“This is not fair, because it improperly denies the right of people to be released because of possible subjective tightening their trials," said Javadov,” he said.

Besides that, the amnesty does not apply to items, for which political, civic and religious activists and journalists have been condemned. According to Javadov, the amnesty only applies to the religious activist Mehdi Shamilli from the categories listed.

In a document submitted to the PACE in January 2013 by the PACE rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan Christoph Strasser is written that there are 85 political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

In its turn, the coordinator of the public alliance "Azerbaijan without political prisoners" Gyulalyev Oktay stated that since the beginning of 2013 about 40 people have been arrested in Azerbaijan. According to Gyulalyeva, today the total number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is about 100 people.