The bilingual report presents the results of the two-year activities of the mobile group of human rights defenders. The Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Georgia Jos Douma and the Public Defender of Georgia Ucha Nanuashvili attended the presentation. They spoke about the significance of the implemented project and the defense of human rights in general. Representatives of the South Caucasus Network of Human Rights Defenders from Armenian Human Rights House and Azerbaijani Human Rights House also attended the presentation. Board chairperson of the Human Rights House Tbilisi Nino Elbakidze and the HRHT coordinator Nino Gvedashvili made welcome speeches. Lawyer of the mobile group Eka Kobesashvili, who represented Human Rights Center in the project, spoke about successful legal cases in the project.
Within the framework of the project Human Rights to the Regions, many facts of human rights violations and alleged perpetrators were identified, who were held responsible for the committed crimes. Several years ago the Human Rights House Baku was closed. Famous Azerbaijani human rights defenders Intigam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov, the Yunus couple and journalist of the Radio Liberty Khatija Ismayl were sent to prison for criminal offences. Nowadays all of them are free but majority of them cannot carry out professional activities for some time.
Within the framework of the project, on behalf of the HRHT member organization Article 42 of the Constitution, lawyer Elena Fileeva monitored the trials into the cases of Azerbaijani human rights defenders in Baku.
Researcher of the Human Rights Watch in South Caucasus Giorgi Gogia recalled the cooperation with Intigam Aliyev and Rasul Jafarov; he said the Azerbaijani human rights defenders are internationally well-known and respectful persons. Giorgi Gogia also recalled the incident of March 30, 2015 when he was detained in the Baku airport for 30 hours when he headed to monitor the trials into the cases of Intigam Aliyev and Rasul Jafarov. However, Azerbaijani border officers detained him in the airport and expelled back to Tbilisi 30 hours later without letting him into the territory of Azerbaijan.
Armenian human rights defenders Artur Sakuns and Ofelia Zalyan from HCAV, and Siranush Davityan from WRC presented the report about the state of human rights in Armenia. The main topic of their report was violation of women’s rights and facts of domestic violence in Armenia.
Giorgi Janelidze
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