Human rights activists call on the authorities to release political prisoners

On Monday monitoring group of human rights organizations held a press conference on the results of the PACE autumn session.

Human rights activist Novella Jafaroglu called an important event the adoption of the report  of Strasser defining the definition "political prisoner"; she  said that this definition will  be applied to all members of the CE.  

 "This is normal, as there are political prisoners are not only in Azerbaijan, but also in other member-countries of the CE, and should be released,"  she said.

Christopher Strasser, PACE rapporteur  for Azerbaijan, who prepared the report, proposed to create a special group or structure that would deal directly with this issue. The monitoring group supported this proposal.

Human rights activist Sayida Gojamanli and Saadat Bananyarly voiced  the appeal to the authorities of Azerbaijan to release before the  PACE January session all political prisoners, to avoid new criticism at the next session.

Human rights activists reminded that attempts to put responsibility for the definition of a political prisoner from  PACE  to European Court of Human Rights, have failed.

Like before, the local human rights activists will determine just who is a political prisoner, and will inform the international organizations.

The members of the press conference also touched on the issue of Ramil Safarov, which was discussed   at the PACE session. Human rights activists welcomed the statements of the members of the Azerbaijani delegation, which "repulsed  of European parliamentarians which condemned the pardon  of Azerbaijani officer."

Human rights activists have also reported about the meeting with the former Rector of the International University, Elshad Abdullayev, who asked for help searching for his brother. Human rights  activists "advises" him to go to the prosecutor office. -05C04-