SG Azerbaijan
Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland reacted to the sentences handed down on 3 October to Arif Hadjili, Mahamat Majidli, Tural Abbasli and Fuad Gahramanli on charges of conspiracy to violate public order for planning and organising anti-government protests on 2 April in Baku. "These sentences are set against a backdrop of a worrying increase in cases being brought against individuals seeking to exercise their basic rights which Azerbaijan authorities are obliged to respect as members of the Council of Europe.
Such worrying trends must be placed alongside the increasingly difficult environment in which legal professionals are constrained to work, and I would encourage the authorities to ensure that lawyers, and particularly those acting in defence of opposition figures, are allowed to practice their profession without prejudice, and without consequence to their status, in full respect of the Rule of Law." (more...)