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“The targeting of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan must stop” said the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, at the end of a two-day visit to the country. The statement of the Commissioner can be found on the site of CoE.
According to him the urgency of his visit was dictated by the arrest and detention over last summer of virtually all the civil society partners of his Office, which makes it increasingly difficult to wo8k on human rights issues in Azerbaijan.

In its statement Muižnieks noted that the recent repressive measures go in exactly the opposite direction from what he has recommended. A number of the recent arrests and detentions are related to shortcomings in the NGO legislation and the way it is implemented.

Commissioner Muižnieks also raised with the authorities the issue of rapid execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, notably in the case of Ilgar Mammadov: “If the authorities want to demonstrate their commitment to Council of Europe values, they should deal with this and similar cases as a matter of priority.”

In the course of his visit, the Commissioner went to Kurdakhani detention center, where he talked with Anar Mammadli, Leyla Yunus, Rasul Jafarov and Intigam Aliyev.

In its turn, the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan" reports that at least 7 of media workers and civil society representatives from Azerbaijan asked for political asylum in the West during the recent months.

"These appeals are the result of harassment and persecution of the media and NGOs, which began in the spring of this year. Family members of media workers who were arrested in Azerbaijan are also among those who have applied for asylum," reports the agency.