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On June 23 draft resolution entitled "Azerbaijan's chairmanship at the Council of Europe: what steps are taken in terms of respect for human rights?" was approved at PACE Bureau meeting in Strasbourg; the draft was initiated by the Irish MP Michael McNamara. The process of monitoring was entrusted to the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the "Caucasian Knot" reads.

Currently in Strasbourg, Emin Huseynov, director of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) told the "Caucasian Knot" that the draft resolution, supported by 49 MPs of the Assembly, was approved on June 23 at the morning session of Bureau of the Assembly.

According to him, it is a short document consisting of one page, but it addresses the issues of the non-implementation of the previous resolutions of PACE, which raised the issues of political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

IRFS director noted that the document contains references to resolution №1917, adopted at the PACE session in January 2013, on the implementation of Azerbaijan's commitments to the Council of Europe. It proposed to review the cases of imprisoned journalists and activists, the lawfulness of which was questioned by the human rights bodies.

Retaining these guidelines in force, on June 23 the PACE Bureau suggested to spread the proposals on the activists and journalists who have been arrested later and called for the release of the Director of the Baku School of Political Studies CE, leader of the "Republican Alternative" movement Ilgar Mammadov, deputy chairman of the "Musavat" party Tofig Yagublu and the head of Elections’ monitoring and democracy training center Anar Mammadov.

According to the article on the basis of this decision on the plenary session of the PACE the document "Proposal for resolution on political prisoners in Azerbaijan" was approved. It was adopted at PACE plenary session by 38 "pro", 32 "con" and 10 abstentions.

"The fundamental point here is the fact of ordering the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to draft the resolution on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, which will appoint a new PACE special rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. However, the discussion on this issue will take place at the next session of PACE, as far as the committee agenda for the current session has been defined previously," Huseynov said.

Thus, according to him, the Azerbaijani authorities will have time till the autumn session of PACE to release the political prisoners, in order to avoid the issue of appointing a special rapporteur.

According to Huseynov, the issue could reach the Monitoring Committee. The rapporteurs on Azerbaijan Pedro Agramunt and Joseph Gresh of that department, who oppose the fact of separately focusing on the problem of political prisoners, believe that this issue should be reflected in their general report on the implementation of Azerbaijan’s commitments to the Council of Europe.

However, as Huseynov believes, these parliamentarians “take a soft and evenmore, a conformist stance and do not raise the issue of release of political prisoners unequivocally. This gives the authorities a chance to maneuver.”