State Department: Impunity, rights violations remain a significant problem in Azerbaijan

The newly released annual State Department Country Reports on human rights practices for 2012 detailed widespread accusations of turning up pressure on human rights and other activists in Azerbaijan and other countries, TURAN's Washington DC correspondent reports.

While releasingthe report on Friday, April 19th, Secretary of State John Kerry made clear that human rights are central to US national security, and the consistency of the reports are a key tool to help advance it.

The most significant problems in Azerbaijan during last year were:

1. Restrictions on freedom of expression, including intimidation, arrest, and use of force against journalists and human rights and democracy activists online and offline.

2. Restrictions on freedom of assembly. While the government approved three peaceful protests in the spring and released all persons arrested for participating in protests in spring 2011, it limited approved demonstrations to a location far from the center of Baku, regularly denied other applications for peaceful political protests, forcefully dispersed unsanctioned protests, and often detained demonstrators.

3. Unfair administration of justice, including continued reports of arbitrary arrest and detention, politically motivated imprisonment, lack of due process, executive influence over the judiciary, and lengthy pretrial detention. Authorities failed to provide due legal process with regard to property rights, resulting in forced evictions, demolition of buildings on dubious eminent domain grounds, and inadequate compensation for property taken by the state.

Other human rights problems reported during the year included reports of torture and abuse in police or military custody that resulted in at least four deaths; harsh and sometimes life-threatening prison conditions; continued arbitrary invasions of privacy; restrictions on the religious freedom of some unregistered Muslim and Christian groups; constraints on political participation; corruption at all levels of government; continued official impediments to the registration of human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); violence against women; and trafficking in persons.

"The government failed to take steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed human rights abused," reads the executive summery of the document.

Domestic human rights monitors reported that security forces abused 141 persons in custody during the year (including a number of reported instances of torture), compared with 136 in 2011.

The report also indicates that most mistreatment took place while detainees were in police stations and that abuse ceased once detainees moved to pretrial detention facilities: "Impunity remained a problem. Authorities reportedly maintained a de facto ban on independent forensic examinations of detainees who claimed mistreatment and delayed their access to an attorney".

The government continued to limit freedom of speech and media independence. Journalists faced intimidation and were beaten and imprisoned. International observers reported that at least six remained imprisoned at year's end.

While ligtening the global human rights situations, the State Department criticized a host of new restrictions on advocacy groups including laws banning free speech, assembly and religion.

Commenting on the latest human rights situation in Azerbaijan, a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told TURAN's Washington DC correspondent that it is time to once and forever admit violence "serves no one's interests in Azerbaijan".

A serious public dialogue is necessary if the government truly wants to address and prevent the popular concern about continuing human rights abuses and corruption the Azerbaijan, according to the source.

Here is the link to the full version of the report on Azerbaijan http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/204472.pdf