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“The Azerbaijani government should carry out “prompt and fair” trial for the chairman of Election Monitoring and Democratic Studies Center, Anar Mamadli,” reports Amnesty International in its official website.

“Anar Mammadli has championed democratic and human rights for years in Azerbaijan, despite persistent pressure by the authorities to silence him and his colleagues,” said Denis Krivosheev, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International.

According to Krivosheev Mamadli’s arrest sends a “chilling” message to Azerbaijani civil society and contributes to the atmosphere of fear that has been dominating in the country under the authoritarian regime of Azerbaijan.

Krivosheev also stated that European leaders have so far closed eyes on Azerbaijani government’s repressions, the proof of which is a new energy deal signed with “increasingly vengeful” Azerbaijani regime. He added that regardless of the commercial interests, European politicians should pay attention to the worsening condition of human rights in Azerbaijan.

“This arrest is the latest in a series of increasingly repressive measures adopted by the Azerbaijani authorities to silence dissenting voices; Azerbaijani NGOs have had to endure years of ever tightening restrictions, arbitrary denials of registration and constant attacks on their members – both physical and psychological,” emphasized Amnesty International representative.

He stressed that this pipeline deal, worth an estimated $45 billion, shows how the Azerbaijani regime managed to escape the criticism so far.

Note, that on 9 of October Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies (EMDC) did a monitoring of Azerbaijani presidential elections and recorded numerous violations of law. In late October, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case and started investigations on EMDC. 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 EMDC head Anar Mamadli. 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.