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The human rights activists Saida Gojamanli, Novella Jafaroglu, right, and Saadat Benenyarli conducted a press-conference on the results of their trip to Strasburg, where they participated in PACE spring session. According to Jafaroglu, throughout their stay in Strasbourg the human rights defenders held discussions about the situation on human rights, freedom of speech, press freedom as well as pre-election situation in the Republic of Azerbaijan. “We are not for a PACE special co-rapporteur on political prisoners in the Republic of Azerbaijan,” said Jafaroglu. (19-APR-08)
 

The Support Council for NGOs attached to the President of Republic of Azerbaijan Republic was created by the Presidential decree on 13 December 2007. Having undergone the long-lasting selection and election procedures, the members of the Council has finally been announced to the public. As it was announced earlier, out of 11 members of the Council, 3 represent state bodies and 8 represent NGOs. Azay Guliyev, right, the president of National NGO Forum, was appointed chairman of the NGO Council. (17-APR-08)
 

OSCE Representative on Media Freedom Miklos Haraszti is on his visit in Baku. He presented the “Media Self-Regulation Guidebook” in the International Press Center and said that it is the first time such a book has been published and it is only being presented in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (13-APR-08)
           

Imprisoned Editor-in-Chief of “Realny Azerbaijan” and “Gundalik Azerbayjan” newspapers Eynulla Fatullayev (right) has started a hunger-strike in Prison #12. Eynulla appealed to the prison’s leadership in the written form, informing them about the hunger-strike. Later over 40 journalists, political activists and political prisoners in total joined the hunger-strike. (10-APR-08)
 

On 3 April in the Baku office of the Council of Europe, the Council of Europe Cabinet of Ministers “AGO” Monitoring Groups discussed the freedom of expression situation in the Republic of Azerbaijan with leaders from media institutions and journalism organizations, functioning in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (05-APR-08)
   

On 28 March the Human Rights Department of the Institute of Peace and Democracy released a statement on the situation of political prisoners. The statement, signed by the director of the IPD Leyla Yunus (right), suggests a number of mechanisms to solve the problem with political prisoners, such as repeated courts, amnesty on political articles, adoption of the law about defamation, demonstration, etc. (30-MAR-08)
   

Media Rights Institute has prepared a draft law proposal “On Protection of Confidentiality of Journalist Sources.” According to the draft law, journalists cannot be forced to reveal their correspondence, notes taken beforehand and the documents. (25-MAR-2008)
    

On 12 March 2008 the U.S. State Department unveiled its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The section devoted to Republic of Azerbaijan is quite sizeable, and includes extensive documentation of press freedom violations that occurred in 2007, as well progress on the investigations into events even prior to 2007, like the 2005 murder of “Monitor” Journal Chief Editor Elmar Huseynov. (20-MAR-08)
    

On 13 March “Azadlig” Newspaper journalist Agil Khalil was attacked by 4 unknown people as he was leaving the office of “Azadlig newspaper”and stabbed in the chest, near his heart by knife. It was the second assault on Khalil in a month, which brought him to hospital. (15-MAR-08)