CoE and Azerbaijani authorities agree to re-establish working group on political prisoners

The Council of Europe (CoE) and Azerbaijani authorities have agreed to re-establish a working group to address the release of persons recognized as political prisoners by local human rights defenders. The offer to take part in the re-establishing working group has already been sent to the Azerbaijani human rights defenders.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that starting from July 30 four well-known figures of civil society were arrested in Azerbaijan, including Rasul Jafarov, the coordinator of the campaign "Art for Democracy", Leyla and Arif Yunus, the human rights defenders from the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), and Intigam Aliev, the leader of the Legal Education Society.

According to the press service of the Council of Europe, in his Monday telephone conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev, Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland has expressed his "deep concerns over the recent arrests of well-known human rights defenders."

The decision to resume the activities of the working group on political prisoners has been positively assessed by Novella Djafaroglu, the member of the Monitoring Group of Human Rights Organizations of Azerbaijan (MGHROA) and the head of the Society for Women's Rights.

Let us remind you that on June 24, Ilham Aliev delivered a speech at the PACE on the occasion of the current six-month Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and mentioned the prejudicial nature of the report prepared by the organization "Amnesty International" (AI). The Azerbaijani President has noted that "there are no political prisoners in Azerbaijan."