David Kramer, former president of Freedom House, urges the US Administration to refrain from high level meetings with President Ilham Aliyev "unless and until he releases all political prisoners," TURAN's Washington DC correspondent reports.
Speaking to TURAN Mr. Kramer, currently senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, said the followings:
"I'm pleased to see the 14 political prisoners released in Azerbaijan, though they never should have been in prison in the first place. Many other political prisoners remain in jail, denied their freedom for exercising their rights."
"They should not be treated as bargaining chips for the Azerbaijani government, and no high level meetings should take place with President Aliyev unless and until he releases ALL political prisoners and addresses the many problems in his country's political system."
Aliyev is expected to attend the US-led Nuclear Security Summit in Washington later in March.
A.Raufoglu
Washington, DC
Politics
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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called President of the United States Donald Trump on 25 November.
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Director of the Institute of Political Management, political scientist Azer Gasymly has been summoned to the Main Police Department of Baku at 16:00 today. He wrote about it in facebook.
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Adalyat Verdiyev, the head of the civil defense staff at the public legal entity Center for Public Health and Reform under the Ministry of Health, and a military expert, has been arrested. On November 22, during a media tour to the liberated territories, Verdiyev filmed and published information and images on his social media accounts revealing Azerbaijani Armed Forces' combat positions in the heights, deployment sites, coordinates, and operational conditions of the border troops. This disclosure caused significant damage to the interests of state security and defense capability. This was stated in a report from the General Prosecutor’s Office.
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On Monday, the Baku Appeals Court considered the appeal of Talysh researcher Iqbal Abilov against the extension of his detention for another four months. The defense argued that the decision to extend Abilov's detention was unjustified, lawyer Fariz Namazly told reporters.
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