Frank Schwabe
Head of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Frank Schwabe responded to the arrest of human rights activist Rufat Safarov in Azerbaijan.
‘The detention of Rufat Safarov shows no readiness of Ilham Aliyev's dynasty to fulfil the conditions of Azerbaijan's return to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
PACE will respond to this in January,’ he wrote in his account on Platform X.
Recall that Schwabe is one of the initiators of deprivation of voting rights for one year of the Azerbaijani delegation in PACE. This decision was adopted in PACE January 2024 because of systematic and gross violations of human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan.
The resolution noted that the right to vote could be returned if political prisoners are released and human rights violations cease.
Politics
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It has been 35 years since the harrowing night of January 19-20, 1990, when a 35,000-strong army corps, following orders from the Soviet leadership, forcefully entered Baku. This invasive act resulted in numerous civilian casualties, marking a tragic chapter in the struggle for Azerbaijani independence. The Soviet army's incursion into Baku was orchestrated to quell the burgeoning national liberation movement, particularly to thwart the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for March 1990.
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A local activist of the Musavat Party, Alikram Khurshidov, was detained in the city of Shirvan last night.
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Erin Robertson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan, responded to a Voice of America inquiry regarding Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov’s January 16 statement that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will no longer be de jure able to operate in Azerbaijan after June 1, 2024.
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Mark Libby, who is concluding his diplomatic mission in Azerbaijan as the U.S. Ambassador, delivered a final message, which was published on the U.S. Embassy's Facebook page.
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