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Azerbaijan’s record on freedom of expression, assembly, and association, already poor, deteriorated even further in 2013, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2014.

According to the report, Azerbaijani authorities arrested dozens of political activists and journalists on bogus charges. The police broke up several peaceful demonstrations, while the authorities adopted legislation that further restricted fundamental freedoms.

Moreover, all these repressions took place in the period leading up to the October presidential vote in Azerbaijan. International observers from the OSCE criticized the presidential elections for failing to meet international standards. According to the assessments, 58% of polling stations observed did bad or very bad.

Besides, the government of Azerbaijan continued forcibly evicting hundreds of families from their houses without adequate compensation. Torture and ill-treatment persist in the police.

According to the report in 2013 political critics in Azerbaijan were arrested on bogus charges of narcotics and weapons possession, hooliganism, incitement, and even treason. Seven members of NIDA youth organization were arrested.

Concerning the Freedom of Media in 2013, the Azerbaijani parliament amended a law expanding the definition of slander and insult to specifically content published on the Internet.
“At least five journalists were arrested or convicted in 2013 on spurious charges in apparent retaliation for critical and investigative journalism,” Human Rights Watch states.

Giorgi Gogia, senior South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch noted that unprecedented suppression of the Freedom of Speech in Azerbaijan took place in 2013.

“But locking up anyone who criticizes the government on bizarre charges will hardly increase the government’s credibility at home or abroad,” he said.

Overall, according to the report in 2013 in Azerbaijan at least 23 people were harassed, including political activist, journalists, bloggers and human rights activists. Till nowadays all of them are imprisoned. “The government should free them and everyone else locked up on politically motivated charges,” Human Rights Watch said.

The organization among the prisoners on politically motivated charges consider the most outrageous ones the arrest of Anar Mammadli, chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS) and opposition political party members Ilgar Mammadov and Tofig Yagublu.

According to the authors of the report, Azerbaijan’s international partners criticized the Azerbaijani government for serious shortcomings in meeting its human rights commitments but also failed to use the full potential of their relationships with the government to press it.

“It’s clear that the Azerbaijani leadership cares about its international image, but much needs to be done internally before the government can be said to be meeting human rights obligations. Azerbaijan’s international partners should use clear human rights benchmarks if they are to succeed in persuading Baku to respect its commitments,” Gogia said.