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President Francois Hollande of France should raise urgent human rights concerns during his visit to Baku on May 11, 2014, reads the statement of the Human Rights Watch published on the site of the organization.

According to the statement in the past two years, Azerbaijani authorities have arrested and imprisoned dozens of government critics, including political opposition leaders, journalists, and social media activists, and broken up peaceful public demonstrations. The country has adopted legislation that further restricts fundamental freedoms.

“Hollande’s visit will be a major event in Azerbaijan, so it’s a crucial opportunity to focus on rights issues. Hollande should not lose this opportunity to urge the Azerbaijani leadership, in private and in public, to free people who have been wrongfully imprisoned,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch has urged Hollande to insist on seeing a prominent human rights defender, Leyla Yunus, and her husband while in Baku. Hollande was to make clear to Aliyev that the Yunuses’ freedom, and Mirgadirov’s, was of great importance to him, and to French-Azerbaijani relations.

In its recent letter to Hollande, Human Rights Watch said that in the past year alone, Azerbaijani authorities have brought unfounded criminal charges, including narcotics and weapons possession, hooliganism, incitement to violence, and even treason, against at least 30 political activists, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders who have criticized the government.

“We hope Hollande will be very explicit in his concern over Azerbaijan’s lack of adherence to the shared values that Council of Europe membership entails, particularly at a time when Azerbaijan is taking over the rotating chairmanship,” Denber stated.