Azerbaijan toughens penalties for violating regulations on mass actions

On November 2, the Parliament of Azerbaijan adopted amendments to the legislation to toughen penalties for violation of the rules of organization and holding of protest actions. Earlier, multiple increases in penalties for the above offences caused criticism from the opposition; however, despite that, MPs adopted the amendments by an overwhelming majority.

Raphail Djebrailov, a non-partisan MP, was the author of the amendments. He has explained the legislative initiative by the fact that "soft" punishment and "paltry fines" do not restrain people from committing offences.

On November 2, MP Raphail Djebrailov defended the same position, while presenting the draft of the amendments to the plenary session of the Parliament. According to him, the amendments had been prepared based on the experience of about 30 states. "They will allow more accurate legal regulation in that area," the MP stated.

However, representatives of the parliamentary minority criticized the amendments. "An action might be organized with good intentions. And in such case, it will be wrong to punish the organizers of the action, if someone commits a provocation during the action," said Fazil Mustafa, the Chairman of the "Great Creation" Party. According to him, the introduction of the restrictive measures into the legislation will strengthen criticizing of Azerbaijani by international organizations.

Iqbal Agazade, the leader of the "Umid" Party, accused the author of the initiative and MPs of the parliamentary majority of "copying the experience of Russia". "You take Russia as a model; however, it is not a democratic country. You should better take truly democratic states as models," Iqbal Agazade stated.

At the same time, he pointed out the incorrectness of taking fines from the legislations of Western states as models. "Fines should be adequate to income of the population," the MP said.