Human rights defenders are concerned with the situation in prisons

A meeting on the situation in prisons and the lawlessness there was held by public activists today in the Media Center. The theme became urgent after a sharp message to the public was issued by Neymat Panahli serving his sentence in jail N17.

The initiators of the meeting were the "Human Rights Club", the Institute of Human Rights and Freedom, the Community Alliance "Azerbaijan has no political prisoners".  

The lawyer Elchin Namazov. According to Namazov, the increase in the number of suicides and deaths in jails is a justified concern. A letter was sent to the Prosecutor's Office demanding a lawsuit be filed on the basis of the alleged suicide of Parviz Mikailov on December 16 in jail N 17.

According to the lawyer, the situation in the Gobustan prison is bad. According to various sources, there is brutal torture and death in this most rigorous prison of the country.

Prisoners die also in the hospital of the Prison Service, as happened with prisoner Murad Shukurov and others.

"It was impossible to treat Shukurov here, and within three months, he was just allowed to die." This happens not only against political prisoners. The public learns about what happened more quickly than about the arbitrariness of prisoners, the lawyer said. Human rights activist Oktay Gyulalyev called for solidarity and resistance against tyranny.

"If someone dies in the system of the Prison Service, the responsibility for this lies with the state," said the lawyer Annagi Hajibeyli. He believes that the appeals to international organizations and the European Court on these facts should be activated.

The lawyer Asabali Mustafayev reported that he protects the interests of five lifers who need serious treatment, but are deprived of it. 

The lawyer Gurban Mammadov considers it necessary to provide support and protection to Neymat Panahli and all the other prisoners, whose rights are regularly violated.

"The regime understands the approaching of its end, therefore it is so rude," said Mammadov.

Torture in prisons is a policy of the state, and not the arbitrariness of individual officials, said the head of the Popular Front Party, Ali Kerimli. "We have to prevent these incidents, which have become a regular occurrence," Kerimli said.

The effort to break people occurs everywhere: in the army, in prisons, in politics. "The authorities do not want citizens with dignity and pride. Ilham Aliyev is responsible for all this," he said.

There is a need for a permanent coalition that deals with all cases of violations of prisoners' rights. It is necessary to develop a list of executioners and people who torture detainees, and to submit the list to the relevant bodies, proposed Kerimli.

Mother of Parviz Mikailov, who died in jail № 17 on December 16, also attended the meeting. "My son was tortured and killed, he did not commit suicide," she said. He spent three years in jail N 16 on charges of resisting police. "On December 9, he called his sister and said that he was not feeling well, as we learned later, he was severely beaten. On December 13 his wife, Mirvari, met with him at the prison hospital.

According to the lawyer Irada Javadova, on December 15, he was taken back from hospital to jail № 16. However, the jail did not accept Mikailov, stating that he was sent to the hospital in a normal state. Therefore, he was taken to the jail N17, where he died the next day.

At the end of the meeting the participants adopted and signed a statement  with a request to understand the events occurring in jails, as well as to provide an opportunity to monitor places of detention. -04С-