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On ludicrous charges of incitement to suicide, the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova was sentenced to 2 months pre-trial detention today, Friday, 5 December 2014. She is a well-known independent investigative journalist, who owned many awards.

Since August 2014, the human rights defender Emin Huseynov of Azerbaijan has been forced into hiding. He is spending his 35th birthday on 4 December in hiding. At the occasion of our birthday, we repeat our call upon Azerbaijani authorities to immediately and unconditionally drop all pending charges against him.

Since 8 August 2014, the human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev of Azerbaijan is in prison. He spent his 52nd birthday in prison on 30 November 2014. His health has heavily deteriorated whilst in detention. We repeat our call for his immediate and unconditional release.

As the Chairmanship of the Council of Europe by Azerbaijan takes an end, 46 NGOs from 10 Human Rights Houses call upon authorities in Azerbaijan to put an end to the unprecedented repression against civil society and to immediately and unconditionally release all civil society actors currently detained due to their engagement for human rights and for raising critics against Azerbaijan’s authorities.

46 NGOs from 10 Human Rights Houses call upon Azerbaijan to stop the on going suppression of civil society, as Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the Council of Europe ends. The NGOs further call for the immediately and unconditionally release all civil society actors currently detained due to their engagement for human rights and for raising critics against Azerbaijan’s authorities, including and especially human rights defenders Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus, Rasul Jafarov, and Intigam Aliyev. Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli must also be released

The Azerbaijani authorities should immediately lift the travel ban imposed on Khadija Ismayilova, leading investigative journalist in the country, and cease all legal proceedings against her. Against the backdrop of the unprecedented crackdown on civil society, Khadija Ismayilova’s arrest on criminal defamation charges seems imminent and would confirm the authorities’ intent to silence all critical voices in the country.

Future European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy was questioned about the EU’s stand on human rights in Azerbaijan, amongst many other issues. She said the EU has to put rights before other interests.

Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe was, from its beginning, a problem: the country was not showing enough efforts to improve its human rights record and true willingness to implement recommendations made by Council of Europe mechanisms. Since it acceded to the chairmanship in May 2014, the record became even worse, with an unprecedented repression of civil society on-going in Azerbaijan.

Side-event at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe