International human rights organization Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the president of Iran Hassan Rouhani calling for the release of five Azerbaijani activists arrested in Iran.
Iranian officials should immediately and unconditionally release five Azeri ethnic minority rights activists. The five were sentenced to heavy prison terms solely for their membership in a party that peacefully works for the civil and cultural rights of the country’s Azeri ethnic minority. An appeals court recently affirmed nine-year prison sentences for each of the five men.
The five were convicted in a closed two-day trial for “founding an illegal group” and “propaganda against the state” in connection with their membership in Yeni GAMOH, an Azeri party, members told Human Rights Watch. Yeni GAMOH, which stands for “New Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement” in the Azeri language, has for more than a decade promoted Azeri cultural and linguistic identity, along with secularism and the right to self-determination for the Azeris of Iran, members say.
On June 16, 2013, an appeals court in the northwestern city of Tabriz upheld the nine-year prison sentences for Mahmoud Fazli, Ayat Mehrali Beyglou, Shahram Radmehr, Latif Hassani, and Behboud Gholizadeh on national security-related charges. The ruling came less than two months after they were convicted by Branch 3 of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court. The five men are currently in Rajai Shahr Prison, in the city of Karaj, 47 kilometers west of Tehran, the capital.
The detainees are all members of Yeni GAMOH’s central committee, and Hassani is the party’s general secretary. Authorities had arrested the men in 2010 in connection with their membership in the group, and revolutionary courts had sentenced them to various prison terms, ranging from six to 18 months, on charges similar to those handed down in April.
They were arrested in 2010 and convicted three years later. One of the grounds for the accusations were protests against the above-named persons against inaction of the authorities due to drying the Lake Urmia, on the shores of which live millions of people. -02D-
Politics
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Following statements about Western plots against Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS), has started to warn Central Asian countries of similar threats. Speaking at a meeting of the Council of Heads of Security Agencies of CIS countries in Astana, he claimed that "the West intends to use surviving terrorists from Ukraine to destabilize Eurasia."
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The board meeting of the "Musavat" party took place on October 7. According to the party's press service, the participation of “Musavat” Chairman Isa Gambar and the head of the organization's assembly, Arif Hajili, at the congress of the European Liberal-Democratic Party (ALDE) in Lisbon, Portugal, was highly appreciated, along with their meetings there. The meeting also discussed the socio-political situation in the country. It was noted that the murder of political emigrant Vidadi Iskanderli in France has raised serious concerns within society, and the relevant French authorities were called upon to conduct an objective investigation and find the perpetrators.
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On October 8, Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold separate bilateral meetings with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan before the start of the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS, Yuri Ushakov, an assistant to the Russian president, as reported by the media. According to him, a trilateral meeting has not been scheduled at this time.
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From September 30 to October 6, a total of 73 anti-tank mines, 159 anti-personnel mines, and 415 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) were reported by the Azerbaijan Mine Action Agency (ANAMA). According to the agency, an area of 2,945.1 hectares was cleared of mines during the previous week.
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