Azerbaijan: 19 life-long convicts go on hunger strike

On April 18, in Azerbaijan, a group of inmates who are serving their life sentences in the Gobustan Prison went on a hunger strike, demanding to reconsider their cases.

In their appeal to the Ombudsperson of Azerbaijan Elmira Suleimanova the hunger strikers say that once they had been sentenced to death, but after the abolition of the death penalty they "were illegally sentenced to life imprisonment."

"The law of the Republic of Azerbaijan, adopted on February 10, 1998, by the National Assembly of the country, abolished the death penalty, and the punishment of those sentenced of death was replaced by life imprisonment. However, the life imprisonment appointed to us by the National Assembly, which had exceeded its powers by taking the powers of the judiciary, is completely contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Azerbaijan is a party," says the appeal of the convicts to the Ombudsperson.

In conclusion of their letter to the Ombudsperson Suleimanova the convicts declare that they go on an endless hunger strike as long as they receive an answer about "elimination of violations of the law."

Mekhman Sadygov, the head of the Division of Public Relations of the Penitentiary Service, has confirmed the fact of the hunger strike. According to his story, the action involves 19 people; they have no health problems.