FAKTXEBER.COM: PACE CO-RAPPORTEUR ON AZERBAIJAN AVOIDS VISIT TO BAKU BECAUSE OF COUNTRY AUTHORITIESÂ~@~Y PRESSURE
12:34 10/04/2015 ” LAW
The visit to Azerbaijan by PACE (the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe) co-rapporteur, Spanish MP Pedro Agramunt, planned
for 8-9 April has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances,
PACE official page on Twitter reads. However, the Azerbaijani media
outlet Faktxeber.com has learnt that Agramunt avoids visiting Baku
because the authorities of Azerbaijan put pressure on him and insist
that he change the term ‘political prisoners’ into ‘prisoners whose
criminal cases have got alleged political motives’ in his upcoming
report in PACE on the human rights situation in that country.
According to the article, Agramunt, in his turn, tries to use his
‘health problems’ as an excuse for postponing the visit. Citing Saida
Gojamanli, a member of the Joint Working Group (JWG) on Human Rights,
the outlet writes that one way or another the Spanish MP will have
to pay a visit to Azerbaijan till the end of June, that is, till the
beginning of the summer session.
The outlet reminds that PACE commissioned Agramunt to file a report
on human rights in Azerbaijan in June 2014 following numerous appeals
from the local activists, and that period coincided with Azerbaijan’s
chairmanship in the Committee of Ministers of the CoE. During this
period Azerbaijan not only failed to make a progress in the field of
human rights, but it also saw dramatic aggravation of the situation
due to the arrests of the activists and the journalists.
The outlet writes that Agramunt had been keeping silent for a long
time and did not pay a single visit to Baku till March 2014 when he
arrived on a shot-term visit to Azerbaijan with his Polish colleague
Tadeusz IwiÃ…~Dski, the co-rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee.
However, as the outlet highlights, the PACE rapporteurs avoided public
statements and press conferences during that visit.
In January 2013 European Stability Initiative NGO demanded PACE
co-rapporteur Pedro Agramunt’s resignation because of making a biased
report and hiding the whole truth about the authoritarian regime
in Azerbaijan. It called him an active representative of ‘caviar
diplomacy.’ During the winter session of PACE European Stability
Initiative issued a report titled “Caviar Diplomacy” which highlighted
the names of those who were engaged in Azerbaijani lobbying and got
‘caviar in return.’ Pedro Agramunt’s name was the first in the list.
Earlier, in 2012, Azerbaijani human rights defender Leyla Yunus had
reported that PACE rapporteurs on Azerbaijan, Agramunt and Gresh,
were being bribed by the Azerbaijani authorities. Yunus said that the
rapporteurs ignored all the materials they were given regarding the
facts of human rights violations and did not include them in their
preliminary report. In particular, the report did not include the
cases of Turach Zeynalov’s death from tortures in the detention centre
of the Ministry of National Security of Nakhijevan; the tortures
of Nakhijevani activist Zeynal Bagirzade; and the tortures of two
journalists from Hayal TV. The section “Freedom of Expression”
did not include the cases of the arrest of the journalists Avaz
Zeynalli and Anar Bayramli, Idrak Abbasov’s beating and Khadija
Ismayilova’s persecutions. The issue of rejecting NGO registration
was not highlighted while considering the “freedom of assembly,” etc.
Related:
”Caviar price” in PACE and struggle of Armenian diplomacy; head of
Armenian delegation in PACE commenting…