Activists told Merkel about problems with human rights and corruption

Baku / 25.08.18 / Turan: During her visit to Baku the German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with civil society activists in Baku. The meeting took place at the residence of the German Ambassador to Azerbaijan, and lasted almost an hour. Turgut Gambar (member of the NIDA movement), Khadija Ismayilova (investigative journalist), Avaz Hasanov (head of the Society for Humanitarian Studies), Shahla Ismail (head of the Women for Rational Development Society) and Sevinj Samadzadeh (youth activist, participant of peacekeeping initiatives) participated in the meeting. According to Shahla Ismail, during the meeting they discussed a wide range of issues relating to the social life of Azerbaijan. In particular, the situation with human rights in a broad context, women's rights, gender development, problems with the activities of NGOs and media freedom, as well as the theme of political prisoners was discussed.

According to Ismail, Merkel listened attentively to the participants of the meeting and demonstrated good knowledge of the situation with human rights in Azerbaijan and other problems. Another participant of the meeting, Khadija Ismayilova, raised the problem of corruption in Azerbaijan at the meeting. She wrote about this on her Facebook page. According to Ismayilova, she asked Merkel how it is possible to ensure transparency of expenses for such megaprojects as pipelines built on the money of European taxpayers without independent media and civil society in Azerbaijan. "I said that the risks we take on as journalists are now shared by our lawyers who are being denied licenses. I spoke about arbitrary arrests, the absence of independent mechanisms to combat torture, people killed in custody in law enforcement agencies, and so on.

My impression is that Chancellor Merkel understands the difficulties and mechanisms of autocratic regimes. She said that our concerns are important, and some of them were considered at a meeting with President Aliyev. I hoped to hear more from her," Ismayilova wrote. -06D--