(New York, October 27, 2004) — The sentencing of seven Azeri opposition
leaders caps the government´s record of serious human rights
violations, flowing from riots over the contentious 2003 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The seven Azeri opposition leaders are widely considered political prisoners. (28-OCT-2004)

On October 22, the Court of Grave Crimes in Baku sentenced the
opposition leaders to prison terms ranging from two and a half to five
years of imprisonment on charges of organizing or participating in mass
disturbances and resisting or committing violence against a state
representative. The charges related to the violence that erupted during
protests following the October 2003 presidential elections, which
independent observers, including the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, found were fraudulently conducted.

“The lack of basic fair trial standards in this case highlights its
political nature,” said Holly Cartner, executive director of Human
Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “It also puts into
question the sincerity of government attempts to resolve the
outstanding
issues surrounding the 2003 presidential elections.”

Human Rights Watch documented torture in pre-trial detention of four of
the seven defendants (see Crushing Dissent: Repression, Violence and
Azerbaijan’s Elections at http://hrw.org/reports/2004/azerbaijan0104/).
Defence lawyers raised allegations of torture in court. Prosecution
witnesses in this case also told the court that police and prosecutors
had coerced and tortured them to make statements incriminating the
opposition leaders.

The judge summoned several law enforcement agents, whom the defendants
claimed had tortured them. The officials denied the torture claims and
the judge accepted their version over the defendants’ with no further
investigation. He then accepted as credible evidence the statements
allegedly coerced through the use of torture. The Convention against
Torture, to which Azerbaijan is a party, explicitly prohibits the use
of
evidence coerced under torture. Independent observers also noted that
the defendants had only restricted access to counsel.

The seven leaders are:
• Sardar Jalaloglu, secretary-general of the Azerbaijan Democratic
Party;
• Igbal Agazadeh, a member of parliament (who was stripped of his
parliamentary immunity in October 2003) and leader of the Umid (“Hope”)
Party;
• Panah Husseinov, a former prime minister of Azerbaijan (1992-93) and
leader of the Khalq (“Nation”) Party;
• Etimad Asadov, the chairperson of the Karabakh Invalids’ Association,
which joined the pro-Musavat Bizim Azerbaijan (“Our Azerbaijan”) block;
• Rauf Arifoglu, a deputy chair of the Musavat Party and
editor-in-chief
of Yeni Musavat; and
• Arif Hajili and Ibrahim Ibrahimli, both deputy chairs of the Musavat
Party.

In the October 2003 presidential election, the government carried out a
well-organized campaign of fraud to ensure victory for Ilham Aliev, in
front of the largest international election monitoring team ever
deployed in the country. When post-election violence erupted, the
government responded with brutal and excessive force, unleashing its
security forces to beat hundreds of demonstrators, some to the point of
losing consciousness, and killing at least one protester.

Human Rights Watch said that the Azerbaijani government did not
prosecute any law enforcement or security agents for torture or
excessive use of force during the election fallout.

More than 100 opposition supporters were arrested and charged in the
days following the protests. Within six months all of them were
convicted of participating in the violence, and more than 30 of them
were sentenced to custodial terms ranging from two to six years.

“The flawed trial reinforces an environment of impunity for abuse
following the 2003 presidential elections,” said Cartner.

The trial of the seven opposition leaders was the last of the trials
relating to the post-election violence. In a September report, the
rapporteurs for the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and
Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe described these
people as “presumed political prisoners.”