Azerbaijan, prisoners are freezing in frosty weather without heating, says Fatullaev who visited one of the colonies

Despite the abnormally cold weather established in the territory of Azerbaijan, the prisoners' blocks of the Penitentiary Facility No. 17 of the Republic's Penitentiary Service are not heated, and the temperature in these premises makes plus 10 degrees Celsius, said Einullah Fatullaev, the head of the NGO "For Human Rights", who visited on February 8 this facility within the monitoring project of custody conditions in prisons.

Prisoners Alyshly and Gasanov did not complain about custody conditions

Mr Fatullaev met in the colony Elshan Gasanov, Elnur Medjidli and Arif Alyshly, convicted in connection with the rally on April 2, 2011, who have been recognized by the "Amnesty International" as prisoners of conscience.

According to Fatullaev, Medjidli had complained about the court's refusal to mitigate his punishment and replace custody for conditional early relief (CER). He also expressed surprise at the fact that Joseph Debono Gresh (Malta), Co-Rapporteur of the PACE's Monitoring Committee on Azerbaijan, who visited Baku last week, was in their colony, but did not meet them. Mr Medjidli complained of toothaches, and colony bosses agreed in the coming days to create conditions for providing dental care to him, said Fatullaev.

The two other prisoners of conscience - Alyshly and Gasanov - receive their treatment at the prison medical section.

Alyshly caught a bad cold, after he was let out to his father's funeral in the Sabirabad District in late January. "Gasanov suffered from hepatitis before his arrest; he is now receiving his treatment in the medical section of the colony," said Fatullaev.

Alyshly and Gasanov did not complain about their custody conditions.

However, Alyshly, according to Fatullaev, expressed a desire to be transferred to another colony, as this penitentiary facility has no yard for a walk; and this caused the prisoner's mental depression.

Convict Panakhly believes that diabetes is a result of stresses suffered by him in colony

Einullah Fatullaev also met Neimat Panakhly, the leader of the Party of National Statehood of Azerbaijan (PNSA), who was arrested in January 2011 and sentenced to six years in prison on charges of hooliganism and inflicting bodily harm. Local human rights activists treat Mr Panakhly as a political prisoner.

According to Fatullaev, "Panakhly is in tense and angry state." "He is outraged about injustice against him and non-provision of a leave to attend the funeral of his father," said Fatullaev.

Panakhly said that because of stresses he now suffers from diabetes. At the same time, he thanked Fatullaev for the fundraising campaign in favour of his family that allowed paying the electric power debts. Let us note here that because of these debts the Panakhly's family consisting of his wife and five small children for several days was deprived of electricity supply in the frosty weather.

Panakhly complained that the Republic's Hospital refused to treat his elderly mother and asked Fatullaev asked to look into this matter and provide the necessary assistance.

Colony barracks are not heated, Fatullaev reports

In general, while describing the situation in Colony No. 17, Fatullaev said that in 1990 this colony was a production bay of Colony No. 2. The barracks of the colony are former production shops and cannot be considered as normal conditions for living.

According to Fatullaev, the blocks of the colony are isolated from each other; and it looks more like a SIZO (pre-trial prison). "The conditions here are not simple, although the regime is considered to be of minimum security," said Fatullaev.

However, this colony is notable for absence of bribe extortion; and at the end of last year, the practice of torturing prisoners was stopped, the human rights activist said.

According to his story, prisoners mainly complained about outages of water and electricity supplies.

Fatullaev has especially emphasized low temperature in the rooms where prisoners are kept. "The relatively high temperature - plus 17 degrees Celsius - is in the barrack, where Medjidli is kept. In other barracks the temperatures is plus 10 degrees. Unfortunately, there is no heating; and prisoners complained about it," said Fatullaev.

As a result of his monitoring, Fatullaev plans to send an appeal to the bosses of the Penitentiary Service with his offers on how to eliminate the revealed violations and deficiencies.

He continues his monitoring and intends to visit Colony No. 16 in the coming days.

It proved impossible to receive any comments at the PR Department of the Penitentiary Service; however, in recent days, its officials told the local press that because of frosty weather prisons were equipped with stand-alone generators for uninterrupted power supply in case of eccentricity outages in the city mains.