Participants in the OSCE event protest against the suppression of NGOs in Azerbaijan (UPDATED)

“We condemn Azerbaijan, Russia and Belarus for the suppression of human rights, the pursuit of human rights defenders, violation of the right to freedom of assembly and suppression of critical voices.” This is in the statement adopted on Tuesday by a group of ODIHR conference participants in Warsaw. The same group held a silent protest against the persecution of citizens for political reasons in Azerbaijan.

In turn, the Human Rights House Foundation, whose representatives participated in the event, made ​​a statement.

It says that the government of Azerbaijan in 2011 began to seriously tighten legislation to restrict fundamental rights to pursue civil society activists, and to punish its leaders.

“We reiterate our call to free wrongly arrested human rights activists: Leyla Yunus, Arif Yunus, Rasul Jafarov, Intigam Aliyev, Anar Mammadli, Bashir Suleymanli and others," the statement said.

One of the participants of the event, Anna Innocenti told Turan the silent action aroused great interest of other participants.

"It was after this action Norwegian Human Rights House Foundation issued a statement, demanding respect for human rights," she said.

At the same time, people at the event, representing the interests of the authorities of Azerbaijan, said that there were no politically motivated arrests, and many of the critics of Azerbaijan have never been to the country. -16D-

2014 September 23 (Tuesday) 20:43:00

During the Warsaw high-level meeting of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) there was held a silent protest in connection with political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

As it can be seen from the photographs spread on Twitter, a group of activists, wearing T-shirts with pictures of Azerbaijani political prisoners entered the conference room, where the event takes place, in silence, and lined up in a row, drawing the attention of the forum.

Among the protesters there was also the investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.

The discussions that take place from September 22 to October 3 deal with the problems of human rights and the development of democracy.

The forum involves the national delegations of the OSCE members, heads of prominent NGOs, prominent politicians and diplomats. -16d-