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The authorities of Azerbaijan are leading an unprecedented crackdown against civil society by arresting, one after the other, key critics of the country’s leadership. Bank accounts of more than a dozen NGOs are blocked and their offices are being searched. The international community should urgently use all measures to protect targeted and imprisoned human rights defenders. Azerbaijan is currently chairman of the Council of Europe and has an even greater obligation to live up to international standards, stop the persecution and repression, and release all imprisoned human rights defenders.

Human rights defender Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus have been arrested on 30 July 2014. Leyla Yunus was sentenced to 3 months pre-trial detention. On 5 August 2014, Arif Yunus was also sentenced to 3 months pre-trial detention. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus, as we see this as part of the persecution against human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.

64 NGOs from 13 Human Rights Houses call upon the Azerbaijani authorities, in their joint letter to President Ilham Aliyev, to immediately and unconditionally release Leyla Yunus, Arif Yunus and Rasul Jafarov, and lift all charges held against them. The NGOs also repeat their previous call to release Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli, and join calls for the release of Hasan Huseynli.

Rasul Jafarov has been arrested and sentenced to 3 months of pre-trial detention, a few days after the same sentence was upheld against Leyla Yunus. In Azerbaijan, human rights defenders are criminalised and their NGOs blocked. We call upon the immediate and unconditional release of Leyla Yunus and Rasul Jafarov.

Since the sentencing in May 2014 of Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli, as well as of eight activists of the youth opposition movement NIDA, the authorities in Azerbaijan have not stopped harassing and sentencing those who stand up for human rights or exercise their right to free expression.

On 26 May 2014 the Court on Grave Crimes has sentenced the two Azerbaijan human rights defenders Anar Mammadli and Bashir Suleymanli to respectively 5 years and 6 months imprisonment and 3 years and 6 months.

A new blog launched by the Polish Department for Strategy and Deregulation, recently published a post praising an interactive portal on the Azerbaijani justice system. Nevertheless, the author of the post fails to mention the problems within the Azerbaijani justice system that makes Azerbaijan the weakest link among the Council of Europe member states when it comes to respecting Human Rights. The praising author fails to recognize that the latter problems will simply not disappear by launching a portal.

The move to persecute one of the most prominent human rights defenders of Azerbaijan, Leyla Yunus, and her husband Arif Yunus, threw shame on the country’s authorities. The country’s election to the presidency of the Council of Europe will however bring fame.

In a joint statement the Special rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the Rapporteur on human rights defenders call for all charges against Anar Mammadli, Bashir Suleymanli and Elnur Mammadov to be dropped and for the immediate release of Anar Mammadli. HRHF has been following the court hearings in Baku on Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 May.