Human Rights Centre (HRC) welcomes the release of political prisoners

Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan welcomed the release of 14 political prisoners, and believes that  the order on pardon of 17 March is an important and necessary step to overcome the crisis that has developed in the relationship between government and civil society after the change in legislation and a number of arrests of human rights defenders.

The  HRC notes that currently, after the liberation of  six human rights defenders,  one of them - the head of the Legal Education Society Intigam Aliyev is still in custody.  He is  charged  with  similar charges against human rights defenders released today.

"We hope that  our colleague will soon  be released," said the head of the Center Eldar Zeynalov.

According to Zeynalov, a pardon  is another step to address the more general problem of political prisoners.  Over the past 1.5 years a difficult dialogue is ongoing  between human rights defenders and the authorities in the framework of the Joint Working Group on Human Rights.

"However,  in the preamble to the order  the president stressed that the document  had been  adopted, including, on the basis of complaints of human rights organizations, it shows that this dialogue has the potential," Zeynalov said.

 The HRC notes that in the years 2014-2016,  thank to due to the Joint Working Group on Human Rights, 37 prisoners  included different political lists were released  before time.—0—