Baku / 18.07.18 / Turan: A group of Azerbaijani and international human rights activists appealed to French President Francois Macron, calling attention to human rights problems in Azerbaijan during his meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on July 20.
The authors are concerned about the depressing human rights situation in Azerbaijan, where more than 100 opposition supporters, journalists, bloggers and religious activists are held in prisons.
Leader of the opposition Ilgar Mammadov, recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, is still behind bars, despite the decision of the European Court of Human Rights of May 2014, which recognized his arrest as illegal.
In November 2017, the ECHR ruled again that Ilgar Mammadov"s rights to a fair trial were violated.
The authors of the appeal ask Macron to call upon Ilham Aliyev to unconditionally release Ilgar Mammadov and all other convicted persons for peaceful demand of their rights to freedom of expression, religion and belief.
The Azerbaijani government ignored the ECHR, despite the fact that the Committee against Torture adopted almost a dozen resolutions calling for the release of Mammadov.
On October 25, 2017, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted an unprecedented decision to investigate against Azerbaijan under Article 46 of the European Convention on Non-Execution of Judgments of the ECHR.
The process can lead to the imposition of sanctions against Azerbaijan and deprivation of its voting rights in PACE.
"We believe that your intervention can make a difference in the cases of Ilgar Mammadov and other political prisoners in Azerbaijan and trust that human rights will be high on the agenda at your meeting with President Aliyev in Paris on 20 July 2018," it was said in conclusion.
The appeal was signed by the Director of the Human Rights Club (Azerbaijan) Rasul Jafarov and the Director of the International Partnership for Human Rights (Belgium), Brigitte Dufour.
A copy of the message was also sent to the French Embassy in Azerbaijan. -06D-
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Mammadov's fate remains uncertain in Georgia, where authorities have denied him political asylum. He moved to Georgia in 2017, having previously engaged in public and human rights activities in Azerbaijan but left the country due to fears of persecution.
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