State Department: US increasingly concerned at narrowing space for civil society in Azerbaijan

Washington on Tuesday expressed "increasing concern" over recent pressure on human rights defenders and journalists in Azerbaijan and urged Baku authorities to ensure that freedoms of expression, association, assembly and movement are being respected.

"We are increasingly concerned about the narrowing of space for civil society activists -- including a number of arrests of democracy advocates and independent journalists -- described in detail in our human rights report on Azerbaijan," Esther Agbaje, a State Department spokesperson, told TURAN's Washington DC correspondent.

"As with the RaufMirkadirov case, we are disturbed that the actions taken by the Azerbaijani Government against LeylaYunus and ArifYunusov appear to be related to their participation in people-to-people (Track II) efforts aimed at building confidence and facilitating a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," she said.

The United States "urges Azerbaijani authorities to support the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, assembly, and movement, to which we have both committed in international OSCE and other instruments," Ms. Agbaje added.

L.Yunus, the head of the Baku-based Institute for Peace and Democracy, has been questioned on Tuesday by local investigators over her ties with journalist Mirkadirov, who was extradited from Turkey and arrested upon his arrival in Baku on April 20 on charges of spying for Armenia.

Yunus has actively been involved for many years in people-to-people diplomacy with Armenian human rights activists, advocating for reconciliation of the two countries, which have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh region.

AlakbarRaufoglu

Washington, DC

04/29/2014