ESI: After Assuming Chairmanship of Committee of Ministers of CoE Azerbaijan has intensified repressions in country
European non-commercial organization European Stability Initiative (ESI) has published a report which details the chronology of arrests of human right defenders in Azerbaijan from 14 May to 25 August 2014. The report is published on the website of the organization.
The report particularly highlights the fact that after Azerbaijan assumed the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) on 14 May 2014, repressions against political, civic activists and journalists have intensified in the country. The document mentions the names of the human rights defenders arrested from 14 May to 25 August.
As the report notes, on 14 May Azerbaijan took over chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the CoE and one day later the Baku Grave Crimes Court sentenced journalist and human rights activist Parviz Hashimli to eight years in prison on charges of arms possession and smuggling.
On 22 May European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the detention of Chairman of the Republican Alternative Civic Movement (REAL) Ilgar Mammadov (sentenced for 7 years of imprisonment) and that of a leader in the Musavat opposition party Tofig Yagublu (sentenced for 5 years of imprisonment) on charges of organising a violent mass protest in Ismayilli, was politically motivated.
On 26 May Anar Mammadli, human rights activist and chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison. Many believe his arrest and conviction were a direct result of Mammadli’s assessment of the October 2013 Azerbaijan presidential elections, which concluded that large scale voting irregularities and fraud had taken place, writes the publication.
The report also mentions names of other human rights activists arrested on fabricated charges, among them online activist Abdul Abilov (sentenced to 5.5 years in prison on drug possession charges), journalist of Azerbaijani opposition newspaper Azadliq Arshad Ibrahimov, journalist and human rights defender Rasul Jafarov, human rights defender Leyla Yunus, blogger Omar Mammadov, head of a civic education NGO in Azerbaijan Hasan Huseynli, Karimov brothers and others.
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