Latest

Torture, persecution, kidnapping, harassment and other pressure mechanisms are frequent cases that Azerbaijani opposition-minded journalists, political party activists and human right defenders expose to, although the Azerbaijani government has ratified Convention against Torture of UN in August 1996 and Convention against Torture of European Council in December 2001. (12 NOV 2004)
 

In a letter to the president Mr. Ilham Aliyev the 29th of October the Human Rights House Foundation  and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) expressed serious concern about the Court of Grave Crime´s decisions. (29-OCT-04).
 

A group of Azerbaijani human rights defenders have appealed to a number of international bodies and influential human rights groups, including Human Rights House Foundation (HRH) to help secure the release of convicted oppositionists. “An unfair sentence was handed down on the convicted opposition leaders, who were charged with organizing disorders during the presidential elections on October 15-16, 2003,” the human rights groups underlined in their appeal. (29 OCT 2004)

The sentencing of seven Azeri opposition leaders caps the government´s record of serious human rights violations, flowing from riots over the contentious 2003 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The seven Azeri opposition leaders are widely considered political prisoners. (28-OCT-2004)

The International League for Human Rights (ILHR), a non-governmental human rights organization based in New York and in special consultative status with UN ECOSOC, expresses serious concern about the recent detention of religious freedom activist and imam of the Muslim community in Baku Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, who also serves as a director of Center for Defense of Freedom of Conscience and Belief in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (28-OCT-2004)

Though the Council of Europe´s (CoE) most recent resolution stipulated that seven key opposition party leaders would be released, the Azerbaijani government ignored the CoE resolution and sentenced the seven to long prison terms. Disappointingly, CoE kept silent. (25-OCT-04)
 

Azerbaijani human rights defenders have published a statement where they express their “deepest concern at acts of violence, harassment and procedural irregularities that characterized the latest referendum poll in the Republic of Belarus, resulting in the allowing the President Alexander Lukashenko to run for a third term in office and to remain as Europe’s last true dictator.” (25-OCT-04)
 

Republic of Azerbaijan Young Lawyers Union (AYLU) is a non-political, non-governmental and non-profit organization, which targets to advocate laws and rights among youth, support proposals strengthening and protecting human rights and legal regulations, to achieve reforms in legal system basing on development of legal relations. From October 2004 AYLU started to impellent the project directed to the struggle against corruption. As a part of the project activities recently the website www.anticorruption.az had been created. The website had been presented to the public at the Round Table conducted by AYLU at Hyatt Regency Hotel, in October 20, 2004 in Baku. (24 OCT 2004)
 

As part of his tour of the South Caucasus region the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Chairman of the Council of Europe´s (CE) Ministerial Committee Jan Petersen met with a group of key Azerbaijani human rights defenders on 12th of October.  On behalf of about 15 Azerbaijani human rights NGOs Fuad Hasanov, a local human rights activist, delivered to Mr. Petersen an open letter, where the human rights defenders highly encourage the establishment of a Human Rights House in Baku. According to the NGOs such a house will make the human rights movement more visible, accessible and improve the security for human rights defenders in the Republic of Azerbaijan. (22-OCT-2004)