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Many of the commitments undertaken, over the 13 years since Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe, remain on paper only, while Aliyev boldly kept repeating that all fundamental rights are respected in Azerbaijan, writes the senior researcher of the Human Rights Watch organization Giorgi Gogia.

"I was not expecting that Ilham Aliyev in his speech would recognize that Azerbaijan had problems with human rights. However, I did not expect that he would completely deny the existence of any problem in the country," writes Gogia.

According to him the President described a fantasy land. But the reality is that many human rights activists, have to flee Azerbaijan, fearing persecution. “In the past two years, Azerbaijani authorities have brought or threatened unfounded criminal charges against at least 40 political activists, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders, most of whom are behind bars,” he noted.

As he believes, by his speech Aliyev wanted to show his contempt of criticism of international organizations. "The Council of Europe and PACE should not allow this. They should remind Baku that trust is achieved by actions, with respect towards human rights and freedoms," he writes.

In his turn, the international human rights organization Human Rights House posted on its website a statement, which noted that the Azerbaijani authorities do not stop the persecution of opponents.

In particular, it condemns the verdict against two bloggers in Azerbaijan - Omar Mamedov and Abdul Abilov. Head of the Geneva Office HRH Florian Irminger believes that this case is an illustration of methods of Azerbaijani authorities - trumped-up charges against critics of the government.