PACE President Listened to Civil Society

Visiting Azerbaijan, PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon today met with civil society activists. The meeting was attended by human rights activists Emin Huseynov, Saida Gojamanli, Intigam Aliyev, Zaliha Taghirova, Arzu Abdullayeva, as well as the executive director of the REAL movement Natig Jafarli and the lawyer Aslan Ismailov.

According to Emin Huseynov, the civil society activists focused on the deteriorating human rights on the eve of the presidential elections, and the exacerbation of the problem of political prisoners.

In addition, facts were marked of the tightening of the national legislation after the admission of Azerbaijan to the Council of Europe.

The representatives of civil society organizations called PACE to toughen its stance on the Azerbaijani authorities and to speed up the handling of complaints at the European Court of Human Rights.

Mignon for his part said that the issues raised were reflected in the January PACE resolution based on the report of the speakers Agramunt and Grech.

However, he drew attention to the recommendations by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe on reforming the electoral code before the presidential election.

Mignon also said that during the meeting with President Ilham Aliyev, he raised the issue in connection with the arrest of the head of REAL Ilgar Mamedov.

He also assured that the CE will strengthen the monitoring of the implementation of Azerbaijan's commitments.

In turn, the representatives of civil society pointed out the inadmissibility of Azerbaijan's chairmanship in the CE Ministerial Committee because of the large number of political prisoners and violations of human rights and freedoms.

Mignon declared CE's readiness to cooperate with the civil society called for the solution of problems through dialogue. -06B-