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Leading U.S. Congressman Christopher Smith urged the OSCE leadership, as well as the U.S. government, to raise the issues of political prisoners and lack of media freedom in Azerbaijan during their discussions with Azerbaijan president IlhamAliyev, TURANnews agencyreports.

"I met with President Aliyev twice in Baku, and I’m hoping to meet him here, in Washington," Smithtold TURAN's Washington correspondent commenting on the visit of Azerbaijan’s president to the U.S., to Nuclear Security Summit, which will be held at the end of March.

When asked about the prospects for approving “2016 Azerbaijan Democracy Act,” Christopher Smith, the head of Helsinki Commission and sponsor of that document,said thatthe U.S. is very serious about that bill. “We are trying to get President Aliyevto realize that he and his government have chosen to repress individuals, journalists, opposition folks, which does not end well,” the congressman informed.

According to him, the fact that human rights are violated in the country, and the number of political prisoners continues to growshould not be ignored. “Journalists sometimes write things that none of us like. When you find out whether you have a systemic problem, if there is corruption involved, you get rid of the corruption, not journalists,” Smith added.

As for the fact that Baku considers the Act “pro-Armenian,”the congressman emphasized that the main aim of the document is to promote fundamental human rights in Azerbaijan, and the Armenians “didn't even know about it until after it was introduced.”

TURANnotes thatCongressman Smith also made a specific appeal to Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Chairman of the OSCE,on behalf of Khadija Ismayilova and other prisoners during the Helsinki Commission hearing in Washington on March 1. He urged the OSCE leadership to advocate for Ismayilova and others prisoners' release.

As TURAN informs, in his response Steinmeier said he recently met with President Aliyev during Munich Security Conference and announced his upcoming visit to Azerbaijan. "We'll urge Azerbaijan to respect the freedom of media and hopefully we'll find solutions on this issue one way or another," he said.

Meanwhile, Caucasian Knot informs that during his visit to Azerbaijan from February 29 to March 1,Pedro Agramunt, the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE),said that it is necessary to implement the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the cases of condemned activists IlharMammadov and TofigYagublu. However, these appeals were perceivedambiguously in Azerbaijan.

“In this respect I was assured that the Azeri authorities would co-operate with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in his Article 52 report on effective implementation of the ECHR, and that dates would be set to receive the SG’s [Secretary General] mandated representatives,” Agramunt said.

According to ElshanHasanov, the head of the Monitoring Center for Political Prisoners, Agramunt’s statementreflected the general position of the Council of Europe. “Previously Pedro Argamunt was the co-reporter of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe on Azerbaijan and had a more contemplative position on human rights problems. This is the reason why many civil society activists did not trust him. However, his recentstatement as the president of PACE has a different tone, and makes public the existing problems, including the political prisoners and pressure on NGO with a special accent on the necessity of the implementation of ECHR decisions.The fact that he highlights the necessity of receiving the delegation, which the Secretary General of the Council of Europe will send, shows that Agramunt expresses the general consolidated position of all the structures of the organization,”Hasanov said adding that the official Baku’s opportunities to maneuver are narrowing and the undertaking of measures on the release of political prisoners becomes inevitable.

However, Samir Kazimli, the Coordinator of the Alliance for the Defense of Political Freedom, is skeptical about Agramunt’s mission. Kazimli said that he had met the Secretary General of the Council of Europe with a group of activists on February 28. “Agramunt pretended to be writing down our speeches, and at the same time, he did not make any statement. When I asked why he had not carried out his mission when he was assigned to make a report on Azerbaijan’s political prisonerson June 2014, he answered that he had been ill. Thisisnotaseriousattitude,” Kazimlisaid.

According to him, Agramunt is famous for his conformist position and his custom of smoothing problems in Azerbaijan. He reminded that in January 2013 he was one of those who failed Christoph Strasser’s report on political prisoners. “Agramunt said that all the issues could be solved by conducting a dialogue with Azerbaijan government. Ironically, the next day, after the failure of Strasser’s report, IlgarMammadov was arrested, and a new wave of arrests of activists started. That is why I asked Agramuntat least not to praise Azerbaijan government if he could not help to release political prisoners,”Kazimli said.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the international Sport for Rights coalition expressed serious concern regarding the on-going disciplinary case against YalchinImanov, a prominent human rights lawyer in Azerbaijan. In his statement published on the websiteof the International Federation on Human Rights (FIDH),the Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committeenoted that judicial harassment against Imanov and many other independent lawyers in Azerbaijan contravenes obligations Azerbaijan has undertaken before the international community.

Imanov represented the interests of many well-known political prisoners, such as imprisoned journalist Khadija Ismayilova, political opposition figures Mammad Ibrahim, FuadGahramanli, and Murad Adilov, journalist NijatAliyev, and many other wrongfully arrested dissidents and victims of human rights violations in Azerbaijan. It is emphasized that disciplinary case against YalchinImanov is another politically motivated case regarding lawyers, who protect dissidents.

Following years of systematic efforts by the Government of Azerbaijan to eliminate the voices of independent journalists, opposition politicians, and civil society groups, Helsinki Commission Chair Rep. Chris Smith on 16 December 2015 introduced the Azerbaijan Democracy Act of 2015, a landmark bill that will deny US visas to senior members of the Azerbaijani government and impose financial sanctions, which could be lifted when the Azerbaijani government shows substantial progress toward releasing political prisoners, ending its harassment of civil society, and holding free and fair elections.

On 23 December, a working group for compiling a comprehensive list of political prisoners issued a consecutive list of the Azerbaijani citizens regarded as political prisoners in the country. The list had 93 names, including well-known rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, political activists, religious leaders and others.It was reported that in December 28, 2015, Azerbaijan president IlhamAliyev signed an order of pardon of 210 convicts, however, citizens recognized as political prisoners by human rights activists were absent from the list of pardoned.