PACE Rapporteur Met with Human Rights Defenders

Baku / 09/06/19 / Turan: Sunna Torhildur Evarsdottir, PACE rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, who is visiting Baku, met with a group of human rights activists the day before.

According to the meeting"s participant, the head of the Committee against Repression and Torture, Ogtay Gyulalyev, the speaker noted she was informed about the renewal of the judiciary in Azerbaijan by 75%, and an increase in the number of lawyers.

"However, we informed the PACE representative that updating the judiciary and increasing the number of lawyers cannot be an indicator of the independence of the judiciary. These updates do not serve to solve the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. One group of political prisoners is being released, new ones are being jailed," Gyulalyev noted.

According to him, Evarsdottir said she plans to meet with several political prisoners in prison during a three-day visit and will prepare an objective report.

"I believe that the rapporteur will prepare an objective report on the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan and it will help release the innocent people arrested for political reasons," Gyulalyev noted.

In addition, activists and journalists who were former political prisoners themselves attended the meeting - Intigam Aliyev, Khadija Ismail, Rasul Jafarov, Mehman Huseynov and recently released Seymour Hazi.

The institution of the rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan was restored in June 2018 after the preparation by a special expert group of the PACE of an investigation on lobbying activities in the Assembly, which resulted in the failure of the report of the former rapporteur Christoph Strasser in 2013. Evarsdottir was appointed the new speaker.

Her visit was planned in Baku in early June, but was postponed by the Azerbaijani side. On September 5-7, her first visit to Azerbaijan is carried out.

The other day, the Union for Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan and the Working Group on the compilation of a single list of political prisoners released

updated lists, in which the names of 117 and 119 people, respectively, were entered. -03B06-