PACE co-rapporteurs arrived in Azerbaijan "blindfolded"?

Baku/08.06.23/Turan: The co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Azerbaijan, Jan Liddell-Granger and Liz Kristoffersen, recently conducted a visit to Azerbaijan from June 3 to June 7.

During their stay, they held meetings with various government officials, including representatives from the Presidential Administration, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, and Justice, as well as members of the judiciary in Baku.

The co-rapporteurs also engaged with parliament representatives, including the Speaker of the Milli Majlis, leaders of political parties, and the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE. Additionally, meetings were arranged with civil society representatives.

Prior to the arrival of the co-rapporteurs, searches were conducted at the homes of imprisoned public and political figure Bakhtiyar Hajiyev and his relatives. Furthermore, Rail Abbasov, a public activist, was detained but released after 8 hours. On June 6, Ziyafat Abbasova, a member of the Democracy and Welfare Party, was reportedly abducted and placed in Mashtag Psychiatric Dispensary No. 1. Anar Suleymanov, a resident of Dashkesan district who made critical statements to the media, was arrested for 30 days. Similarly, political activist Amrah Tahmazov was arrested for 30 days for criticizing President Ilham Aliyev on social media while demanding the release of Alizamin Salayev.

Fuad Hasanov, a human rights activist, shared his perspective on the activities of the PACE Monitoring Committee co-rapporteurs in an interview on the "Difficult Question" program. He noted that the purpose of their visit was to assess Azerbaijan's compliance with its obligations to PACE. Hasanov revealed that he had written a letter to the co-rapporteurs 7-10 days before their arrival, raising the issue of political persecution by the Azerbaijani authorities. However, he did not receive a response to his message.

On the final day of the visit, June 6, Hasanov received an unofficial message about a possible meeting at 4:30 pm. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend as he was engaged in other activities and did not anticipate a meeting with the co-rapporteurs. Nevertheless, Hasanov acknowledged that the co-rapporteurs did meet with families of some prisoners and representatives of opposition parties. However, he stressed that these meetings should have been more effective.

According to Hasanov, it would have been more appropriate for the co-rapporteurs to meet with human rights defenders and civil society representatives before engaging with the authorities. He believes that in order to address the issues at hand, a thorough understanding of the situation is necessary, which can only be achieved by delving into the problems and studying them in detail. This would enable the rapporteurs to ask relevant questions to the authorities and verify their responses. Hasanov expressed concern that the meetings with the authorities seemed to take precedence over engaging with civil society and human rights advocates.