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Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks has made an announcement condemning the latest facts of crackdown on civil society activists in Azerbaijan. This was reported by Azerbaijani information agency Turan.

“The arrest of Rasul Jafarov and the travel ban imposed on Emin Huseynov provide yet another disturbing illustration of how human rights defenders in Azerbaijan are systematically threatened with an instrumental use of criminal suits. These cases happened shortly after the arrest of Leyla Yunus and her husband,” says Muižnieks in the announcement.

The announcement also states that Azerbaijan is failing to comply with its international obligations, which are: freedom of expression, assembly and association. It is necessary that the Azerbaijani authorities shout change the situation to the better and a first step in this regard should be freeing all those detained who got arrested for the views they expressed, reads the article.

Turan also informs that Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties supported by the European Commission will visit Azerbaijan to monitor the situation with NGOs. The question refers to the pressure on the civil society sector which began after Azerbaijan passed a regulation on restrictive measures that opened a way for the crackdown on NGOs.

The article also states that because of the current bureaucracy in the country NGOs cannot develop. The persecution of civil society activists for political motives is also a serious problem. The article also reminds that in the framework of the Eastern Partnership Azerbaijan has accepted the Guiding Principles of the European Union on the protection of human rights defenders. Besides, Azerbaijan, as a Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, has a special responsibility to maintain the European norms of creating normal conditions for the civil society.

In its turn Turan reports that at the round table in Wilson Centre in Washington expert from Kennan Institute Steven Johns noted that in Azerbaijan, regarding the arrests of journalists and oppositionists, the hopes for preserving democracy are far less than in Armenia.

At the last session of the PACE in Strasburg Rasul Jafarov and several other human rights activists made a report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. A month ago, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE in Baku Jafarov and other activists held a public hearing on civil society issues. Both of these events have caused a backlash in Baku. Authorities got furious with the decision of PACE to appoint a special rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Human rights activist Leyla Yunus was arrested on 30 July in her house yard. A number of charges were brought up against her among them that of state treason. According to the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) of Azerbaijan as of 21 May 2014 there were 130 victims of political repressions in Azerbaijan: 41 of which are prisoners of conscience and 89 are political prisoners.