Defenders on the presidential pardon

The head of the Center for Monitoring Political Prisoners Elshan Hasanov negatively assessed the current Order of the President of Azerbaijan in terms of solving the problem of political prisoners. In an interview with Turan, he noted that only a small part of the prisoners have been pardoned.

"Our organization has submitted a list of 107 political prisoners, but only a small part of them was pardoned. Moreover, the pardon did not touch the  REAL leader Ilgar Mamedov and former Health Minister Ali Insanov, for which there are decisions of the European Court.

Spouses Yunus, who cannot go abroad for treatment   also have not been pardon. The only currently-political prisoner woman Khadija Ismailova also remains in custody," Hasanov said.

   According to him, the pardon did not meet the expectations of society and human rights defenders. "We expect at least 65-70 political prisoners will be pardoned. None among those pardoned and not one of the faithful," Hasanov said.

The head of the Public Alliance "Azerbaijan without political prisoners" Oktay Gyulalyev believes that any pardon, and even the release of political prisoners is to be welcomed.

"However, the current pardon is half-hearted: only 10% of prisoners have been released. The authorities have shown discrimination, and did not include in the pardon  any of the members of PFPA.

For similar criminal released, others - no. Out of those pardoned human rights is  defender Intigam Aliyev, the journalist Khadija Ismayilova, leader of the movement REAL Ilgar Mamedov. This pardon is a very small step on the background of great expectations," said Gyulalyev.

He also pointed to the negative trend, when the authorities releasing some political prisoners, arrested new. Therefore, for a long time, the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is  100 people.

The head of the Bureau for human rights and the rule of law Saida Gojamanli welcomes decree on pardon, calling it a major step towards addressing the problem of political prisoners.

She noted that in December 2015 the monitoring group of human rights organizations presented President Ilham Aliyev a list of 23 political prisoners asking for clemency. From this list, 14 people today were pardoned, and Rauf Mirkadyrov has been released by the decision the Court of Appeal.

"We will continue to work for the liberation and the rest through a pardon or the decisions of the Court of Appeal as part of our monitoring group and the Working Group on Human Rights. We hope that the June session of PACE will release all other persons on our list," said Gojamanli.

From the list of the monitoring group  currently in detention are Ilgar Mammadov, Ali Insanov, Faraj Kerimli, Abdul Abilov, Ilkin Rustamzade, and  Khadija Ismaylova.-06B--