Your trusted source

Two independent UN experts have raised serious concerns in regard to the charges brought against three human rights defenders in Azerbaijan after the 2013 presidential elections. The statement is posted in UN website.

According to the statement, those are Chairman of the Azerbaijani Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, Anar Mammadli, Executive Director Bashir Suleymanli, and the President of the Volunteers of International Cooperation Public Union, Elnur Mammadov. They have been accused of conducting organized group business activities without registration and abusing official powers. They face up to 12 years in prison. Mammadli has been in pre-trial detention since December.

Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association said in her statement that human rights defenders are being prosecuted in retaliation for their legitimate work in documenting alleged widespread irregularities and human rights violations around the presidential elections of 9 October 2013. Maina Kiai stressed that all charges brought against them should be dropped and Mr. Mammadli should be released immediately.

The statement noted that in June Mammadli participated in a consultation with Kiai in Geneva as part of preparations for a report on exercising the rights to freedom for peaceful assembly and association in the context of elections. The Democracy Studies Centre has faced many challenges regarding its registration as the registration procedure is extremely difficult.

According to Margaret Sekaggya, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, prosecutions towards these human rights defenders would not only have a devastating impact on Azerbaijani civil society as a whole, “it would also indelibly stain the 2013 presidential elections.”

UN experts recalled their statement of October 2013 in which they urged the Azerbaijani Government to recognize and enable the role of defenders and civil society organizations in the run-up to its presidential elections.

According to UN experts the prosecution of the three human rights defenders was even more troubling as last month Azerbaijan was elected into the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations. They emphasize that the activities of Azerbaijani authorities would run contrary to the role of Azerbaijan within this UN Committee.

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.