Azerbaijan ratified in 2009 the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, hence accepting a system of unannounced and unrestricted visits to all places where persons are deprived of their liberty by independent international and national monitoring bodies, including unhindered access to the Sub-Committee on Prevention of Torture to any place of detention.
In 2009 Azerbaijan appointed the Office of the Ombudsman as National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) to monitor places of detentions. As general criteria, the NPM need to be independent, free from government influence and should receive sufficient resources to carry out its work effectively. This includes the power to access all places of detention, without restriction, and to be able to talk with detained persons in private. Such is lacking in Azerbaijan, further underlining the importance of the SPT visit.
In a country in which the NPM cannot ensure transparency of its work and that it is fully independent from the government, the international mechanism is even more important. On its Facebook page on 19 September 2014, the Association for Prevention of Torture called “the lack of cooperation by the authorities […] not only a violation of Azerbaijan’s human rights obligations, but also an attack on the spirit of torture prevention.”
