PACE President urges Azerbaijani authorities to release Ilgar Mamedov

Azerbaijani authorities shall immediately release Ilgar Mamedov, the leader of the civil movement "Republican Alternative" (ReAl), convicted on charges of organizing riots in the city of Ismailly, from prison, who was, said Anne Brasseur, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is on her visit to Baku.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Ilgar Mamedov was accused of organizing riots on January 23-24, 2013, in Ismailly. Despite the criticism of the international community and human rights organizations, Mamedov was sentenced to seven years in prison.

During her press conference in Baku, Anne Brasseur welcomed the ratification by Azerbaijan of the vast majority of conventions of the Council of Europe (CoE) and confirmed the support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, earlier expressed in resolutions of the PACE.

Along with that, Ms Brasseur ascertained the existence of problems in Azerbaijan with human rights, the freedoms of expression and assembly, noting the need for "doing more work" towards implement the country's commitments to the CoE.

She expressed satisfaction that the Azerbaijani rights defenders had managed to agree on the unified list of political prisoners and pointed out that the European Court of Human Rights had already decided on Mamedov's case and found a violation of his rights.