The head of the U.S. Delegation to the OSCE PA, Senator Christopher Smith on June 28 during a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev raised the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. On that Smith himself said in an interview with reporters on Sunday.
According to him, the meeting lasted about an hour and he welcomed Azerbaijan's achievements in the fight against trafficking.
However, Smith raised the issue of political prisoners, and in particular the case against the head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center Anar Mammadli.
Smith also handed over to President of Azerbaijan a list of political prisoners of the international human rights organization Amnesty International.
"I think that we had an open and frank conversation," Smith said.
Note that, according to the lists of Amnesty International, in Azerbaijan there are 19 "prisoners of conscience."
According to the agreed list of 11 NGOs, the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is 81. -0-
Politics
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The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has called for the urgent release of activist Rufat Safarov from prison in Azerbaijan. It has launched a campaign in support of the Azerbaijani human rights defender. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/arbitrary-detention-and-judicial-harassment-against-rufat-safarov
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This year, the laureate of the annual Nargiz Prize, awarded for efforts in the fight for democracy, was Akif Gurbanov, chairman of the board of the Resplatforma (Platform of the III Republic) movement, who is under arrest.
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The U.S. will prohibit the issuing of visas for nearly a dozen more individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia, bringing the total number to over 100, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
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The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has expressed condolences to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, following the tragic incident in the city of Magdeburg. "We are deeply shocked by the news of the deaths and injuries resulting from the tragic incident that took place at the Christmas market in Magdeburg," the message reads.
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