Azerbaijan Lags Behind Its Neighbors in Reintegration of Released Prisoners

The organization Penal Reform International (PRI) on July 17 held a regional conference in Tbilisi on "Application of non-prison sanctions in the South Caucasus." A meeting of experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia took place in the framework of a project funded by the UN Democracy Fund, and covered the discussion of the work of probation services, methods of execution of suspended sentences and criminal non-custodial punishments, supervision programs for parole, the organization of rehabilitation programs for probationers, etc.

The conference was attended by the delegation of Azerbaijan consisting of 4 employees of the Prison Service and the Human Rights Defenders Eldar Zeynalov, Zaliha Taghirova and Kamil Salimov. It should be noted that in March PRI held a seminar in Baku on the probation services on the example of the relevant service in Georgia.

Commenting on the state of probation in Azerbaijan, the Director of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan (HRCA), Eldar Zeynalov noted that "today the functions of the probation service are distributed among several departments of the country. A few years ago a law was passed on social reintegration of released prisoners, but the establishment of special centers for released prisoners is for some reason delayed. As a result, Azerbaijan is lagging behind its neighbors, particularly Georgia, in this. I hope that such conferences will help to overcome this. " - 0--