Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), expressed concern about arrest of Anar Mammadli, chairperson of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDSC) in Azerbaijan, on grounds of alleged illegal entrepreneurship.
Noting that EMDSC is an established and professional citizen election observation group, Lenarcic said: "The reported arrest of Anar Mammadli is disturbing as it endangers citizen election observation, the role of which in ensuring the integrity of electoral processes has been recognized by all OSCE participating States, including the Republic of Azerbaijan".
EMDSC was created as the successor of the Election Monitoring Center, which had been deregistered as a non-governmental organization on 14 May 2008 by a district court at the request of the Ministry of Justice. An appeal of this case is currently pending before the European Court for Human Rights. Since 2008, EMDSC has faced challenges with registration, affecting their activities during the 9 October presidential election this year.
"We have raised our concerns with the authorities and requested clarification on this matter," Lenarcic added. "We will continue to follow this situation closely and hope this matter will be addressed in line with Azerbaijan's OSCE human dimension commitments."-0-
Politics
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The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has called for the urgent release of activist Rufat Safarov from prison in Azerbaijan. It has launched a campaign in support of the Azerbaijani human rights defender. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/arbitrary-detention-and-judicial-harassment-against-rufat-safarov
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This year, the laureate of the annual Nargiz Prize, awarded for efforts in the fight for democracy, was Akif Gurbanov, chairman of the board of the Resplatforma (Platform of the III Republic) movement, who is under arrest.
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The U.S. will prohibit the issuing of visas for nearly a dozen more individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia, bringing the total number to over 100, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
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The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has expressed condolences to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, following the tragic incident in the city of Magdeburg. "We are deeply shocked by the news of the deaths and injuries resulting from the tragic incident that took place at the Christmas market in Magdeburg," the message reads.
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