Members of South-Caucasian Network of Rights Defenders decide to expand membership and increase interaction

Activists of 30 human rights NGOs of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, which make up the South-Caucasian Network of Human Rights Defenders, have held a joint seminar, where they announced their countries' most typical problems in the human rights movement. After meeting the Georgian Ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili, they decided to intensify cooperation among themselves and with international organizations, and to expand their ranks by inviting new members.

According to Intigam Aliev, the head of the Azerbaijani Legal Education Society, the Azerbaijani government has complicated, on the legislative level, the procedure of NGO registration and limited the ability to conduct inquiries into human rights violations.

Mamikon Ovsepyan, who represented Armenia, pointed out in his presentation that in his country a great resonance was caused by the law on gender equality adopted in 2013.

"Conservative forces made everything to distort the essence of the law. They told people that it is not a law on protection of women, but the law on promotion of homosexuality and paedophilia," he said.

Irakli Vacharadze, the head of the Georgian organization "Identity", told about a new phenomenon for the Georgian society – human rights defenders who act against human rights.

"After many prisoners were released from prison as a result of the amnesty, some of them declared themselves to be rights defenders; however, they stand in terms of homophobia, rejection of non-traditional religions and against ethnic minorities," he said.

The Georgian Ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili has urged the members of the South-Caucasian Network of Human Rights Defenders to increasingly address the respective international institutions – the European Ombudsman Institute in Austria, the International Ombudsman Institute and the Ombudsman of the Council of Europe.