Human rights situation in Azerbaijan has not improved in 2022 - HRW

Baku/12.01.23/Turan: The human rights situation in Azerbaijan has not improved in 2022. In May, the authorities released more than 20 political prisoners, but at least 30 illegal prisoners remained in prisons.

Note that the authorities continued to persecute their critics and those who disagree with them.

This is stated in the report of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) for 2022.

Restrictive laws continue to hinder the activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Other persistent problems include torture and ill-treatment in places of detention, as well as restrictions on media freedom.

Authorities continued to use false drug possession charges to arrest political activists critical of the government. In many cases, detainees reported ill-treatment by the police.

In May, the authorities arrested Rashad Ramazanov, a blogger and former political prisoner on trumped-up drug possession charges. Ramazanov actively criticized the arbitrariness of the police and corruption in the government on social networks.

Also in May, the authorities arrested PPFA member Razi Alyshov on trumped-up drug possession charges.

In March, the court sentenced PPFA activist Shahin Hajiyev to six years of imprisonment also on trumped-up charges of drug trafficking.

In addition, the authorities filed false charges of drug possession against several persons who were deported to Azerbaijan from Germany in 2021. They failed to get asylum in Germany, and in some cases they publicly criticized the Azerbaijani authorities. These are Pyunkhan Kerimli, Jafar Mirzayev, Malik Rzayev and Mutallim Orujev. The authorities claimed that drugs were found in everyone's possession when they were arrested.

In April, the police detained Samir Ashurov on charges of assault. This happened a few weeks after his deportation. The police questioned him about his political activities in Germany.

In September, the editor of the online channel "Hural TV" Avaz Zeynally and lawyer Elchin Sadygov were imprisoned for four months on charges of bribery. Later Sadygov was transferred to house arrest.

All major media outlets in the country remain under the strict government control. People who have publicly criticized the government are facing threats to silence them.

In February, President Ilham Aliyev signed a media law that restricts the independence of the media, prohibiting non-residents from owning the media and requiring journalists to have higher education, an official contract and three years of experience to obtain accreditation.

The authorities use slander to silence critics of the government. According to the independent media monitoring group of the Media Rights Institute, in 2022, the prosecutor's office demanded imprisonment in 11 defamation cases initiated by way of private prosecution. The courts convicted at least four people for their publications. 

According to the Media Rights Institute, they were persecuted "for opinions or articles on issues of public interest." Among those convicted of defamation cases are the head of the Citizen and Development Party Ali Aliyev, human rights activist Ilham Aslanoglu and others.

When it comes to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the report points to the fighting in mid-September on the border between the two countries, as a result of which three civilians were killed in Armenia. Isolated incidents of hostilities continued to threaten the safety of civilians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

In October 2022, the Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan stated that from the moment of the ceasefire in 2020 until mid-October 2022, 34 civilians were killed and 80 more were injured due to mine explosions in Karabakh and surrounding areas.

Neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia are parties to the International Treaty on Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Landmines, HRW says.-16D-