RAMPANT ABUSES AS BAKU ASSUMES COUNCIL OF EUROPE CHAIRMANSHIP
Wednesday, May 14th, 2014
Azerbaijani police apprehend a protester
BERLIN (HRW)â?”Azerbaijan falls far short of Council of Europe
membership commitments, even as it assumes chairmanship of the
organization, international advocacy organization Human Rights Watch
says in a new extensive report on Azerbaijan’s plethora of past and
current human rights abuses.
Azerbaijan will assume the rotating chairmanship of the Council of
Europe’s Committee of Ministers on May 14, 2014, following years of
relentless crackdown on criticism.
“The Council of Europe is the region’s foremost human rights body,
but Azerbaijan’s chairmanship comes at a time when the government is
blatantly flouting the organization’s core standards,” said Giorgi
Gogia, senior South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The
Council of Europe’s leadership should make clear to Azerbaijan that
it needs to free unjustly imprisoned government critics and undertake
far-reaching rights reform.”
In the past two years, Azerbaijani authorities have brought or
threatened unfounded criminal charges against at least 38 political
activists, journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders, most
of whom are behind bars. In its September 2013 report “Tightening
the Screws: Azerbaijan’s Crackdown on Civil Society and Dissent,”
and in 35 follow-up interviews and other research since then, Human
Rights Watch documented the authorities’ use of a range of criminal
charges, including drug and weapons possession, incitement to violence,
hooliganism, tax evasion, and even treason.
The circumstances of the criminal investigations and numerous
violations in legal proceedings leave little doubt that the charges
against these critics are bogus and intended to punish them for their
independent activism and criticism of the authorities, Human Rights
Watch said.
Among those imprisoned are eight youth political activists sentenced
on May 6, 2014, to prison terms ranging from six to eight years;
five young men whose trials are ongoing or pending who administered
or blogged actively on Facebook pages that sharply criticized the
government; Ilgar Mammadov, a prominent political analyst who intended
to run for president in 2013 and Tofig Yagublu, deputy chair of
the opposition political party Musavat, both of whom in March 2014
were sentenced to seven and five years, respectively, in prison;
and Yadigar Sadigov,an adviser to Musavat,sentenced to six years in
prison on January 14.
In April Rauf Mirgadirov, an outspoken reporter and commentator,
was arrested in Baku’s international airport after he was unlawfully
deported from Turkey and is facing treason charges. In December 2013,
police arrested Anar Mammadli, chairman of Azerbaijan’s leading
independent election monitoring group. He is on trial on trumped-up
charges ranging from tax evasion to abuse of office.
Azerbaijani authorities severely limit freedom of assembly and use
force to disperse any unsanctioned protests. In a recent example on
May 6, 2014, police in Baku violently dispersed a peaceful crowd of
about 200 who had gathered at the courthouse in support of the eight
youth activists sentenced that day. At least 26 were arrested. Courts
fined 12 of them and sentenced 5 to misdemeanor jail terms of 15 to
30 days. Among them was Kemale Benenyarli, whom police struck several
times on the head as they questioned her. Benenyarli’s lawyer told
Human Rights Watch that Benenyarli has several bruises on her head
and has had headaches and vomiting as a result. The Interior Ministry
has denied the allegations.
When Azerbaijan became a Council of Europe member in 2001, one of
the commitments to which it agreed was the release of all political
prisoners and an end to silencing its critics by prosecuting them
on politically motivated charges. A January 2013 resolution adopted
by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly highlighted the
ongoing problem of politically motivated prosecutions, concluding,
“The combination of the restrictive implementation of freedoms with
unfair trials and the undue influence of the executive results in
the systemic detention of people who may be considered prisoners
of conscience.”
Police clash with protesters after a court issued prison sentenes to
youth activists opposing the government
The resolution urges Baku to review the cases of human rights
defenders, activists, and journalists who have been imprisoned
on criminal charges and whose trials did not meet international
standards. It also urges the authorities to “use all available
legal tools to release those prisoners whose detention gives rise to
justified doubts and legitimate concerns.”
Securing Azerbaijan’s compliance with its Council of Europe
commitments, including the release of those held on politically
motivated charges, should be a top priority for the organization and
its member states, Human Rights Watch said.
“The result of the government’s arrest campaign is an ever-shrinking
space for freedom of expression, assembly, and association in
Azerbaijan,” Gogia said. “Instead of addressing this problem in the
lead-up to its Council of Europe chairmanship, the government has
only stepped up the repression.”
Politically Motivated Arrests and Convictions in Azerbaijan The
September 2013 Human Rights Watch report “Tightening the Screws:
Azerbaijan’s Crackdown on Civil Society and Dissent” documented the
arrest and imprisonment of several high-ranking members of opposition
political parties, government critics with large followings on social
media, and people who had frequently been involved in political
protests. In the eight months since the report was published, 17
people whose cases the report documented and who were awaiting trial
have been convicted and sentenced to prison; 2 have been released;
and 10 more have been arrested and are behind bars pending criminal
investigations or trials.
On May 6, 2014, the Baku Grave Crimes Court sentenced eight political
youth activists to prison terms ranging from six to eight years on
a series of bogus charges related to an alleged plan to instigate
violence at a March 2013 protest that the authorities violently
dispersed before it began. Seven of them â?” Bakhtiyar Guliyev,
Shahin Novruzlu, Mahammad Azizov, Rashad Hasanov, Uzeyir Mammadli,
Rashadat Akhundov, and Zaur Gurbanli â?” are from the youth opposition
movement NIDA (“exclamation mark” in Azeri), which was founded in 2010
and campaigns for democratic reforms and the rule of law in Azerbaijan.
The eighth, Ilkin Rustemzadeh, is a member of another youth movement,
Azad Genchlik (Free Youth).
Human Rights Watch has documented the Azerbaijani authorities’ pattern
of pressing spurious drug possession charges to lock up their critics.
In recent months, five more Facebook and other social media activists
have been arrested or convicted on illegal drug possession charges.
None had access to a lawyer of their choosing during their initial
interrogations or remand hearings, while at least three complained
of ill-treatment in police custody.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
