Human rights activists call on authorities to declare amnesty and pardon

Baku/01.03.21/Turan: Human rights organizations - the Center for Monitoring Political Prisoners, the Baku Public Association of the Disabled and War Veterans appealed to the authorities to announce a wide amnesty and pardon. They also proposed to extend these acts to 145 political prisoners, Turan was informed about this by the head of the Center for Monitoring Political Prisoners Elshan Hasanov.

At today's meeting of human rights defenders, which was held in a narrow format, special attention was paid to the situation in the village of Nardaran, where a state of emergency has been in effect since November 2015.

“Entry to Nardaran is still restricted. The police are checking entrants. Detentions of local residents for 3-5 days are systematically carried out. There is a ban on visiting mosques,” said Zemfira Huseynova, a speaker on this issue. Activists called on the authorities to lift restrictions in Nardaran and end pressure on local residents.

Mubariz Aliyev, a member of the public association of disabled people and war veterans, drew attention to the problems with obtaining disability for veterans of the second Karabakh war.

According to him, despite the decision of the country's leadership to write off the veterans' debts to banks, financial institutions require them to repay loans. Aliyev also drew attention to the low salaries of the military.

Human rights activist Mehdi Shamilli focusing on the problem of a group of people serving life sentences. They were convicted in the mid-1990s to be shot, and after the abolition of the death penalty, they replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment. However, they have already served 25 years or more in prisons. Some of them were recognized as political prisoners.

The participants in the meeting called on the authorities to pardon these persons, as well as to release the seriously ill Ibrahim Khudaverdiev, who was convicted in the “Nardaran case”. — 06B-