#Mekhman karimov attorney free
"The Council of Europe's leadership should make clear to Azerbaijan that it needs to free unjustly imprisoned government critics and undertake far-reaching rights reform." "The Council of Europe is the region's foremost human rights body, but Azerbaijan's chairmanship comes at a time when the government is blatantly flouting the organization's core standards," said Giorgi Gogia, senior South Caucasus researcher at Human Rights Watch. Azerbaijan will assume the rotating chairmanship of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers on May 14, 2014, following years of relentless crackdown on criticism. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.Īzerbaijanfalls far short of Council of Europe membership commitments, even as it assumes chairmanship of the organization. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Mehman Huseynov, a photojournalist and blogger, was released on Maafter spending two years in prison on trumped-up charges of defamation.Human Rights Watch, Azerbaijan: New Arrests, Convictions of Critics, , available at: In January 2018, Afgan Mukhtarli was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of smuggling, illegal border crossing and assaulting state officials. Moreover, a travel ban has been imposed on her, which prevented her from being with her mother at the time of her passing away.Īzerbaijan has a dismal record of press freedom, where the government has vindictively pursued journalists for their work and in some cases jailed them. Her assets are still frozen, and she has no access to her bank accounts. She was eventually released in May 2016 after spending nearly one-and-a-half years in prison.Īccording to Ismayilova’s lawyers, Amal Clooney, and Nani Jansen and Alinda Vermeer of the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI), she could still be targeted by the Azerbaijani government as she is on probation until 2021, which can be terminated on flimsy grounds and converted into a three-and-a-half-year sentence. The court ordered Azerbaijan to pay €25,000 in damages and costs to the journalist.Īn investigative journalist who exposed corruption at the highest levels of government, Ismayilova was arrested in December 2014 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on politically motivated charges of embezzlement, tax evasion and abuse of power. The court further stated that by referring to Ismayilova as guilty in a public statement, the prosecution had denied her right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, a violation of Article 6 of the Convention. In its judgement, the court also said that Ismayilova’s arrest was in violation of Article 18 of the Convention as it was “driven by improper reasons and that the actual purpose of the impugned measures was to silence and to punish the applicant for her journalistic activities”. “We call on Azerbaijan to fully enforce this ruling and to end its harassment of Khadija Ismayilova and all other journalists in the country.” “The judgement is an important victory for press freedom in Azerbaijan, a country where the government has made every effort to silence critical journalists”, IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said. The court said that Azerbaijan violated the journalist’s right to liberty under Article 5 of the convention as her arrest was not based on a “reasonable suspicion” that she had committed any crime. The ECtHR today ruled that the 2014 arrest, detention and prosecution of Ismayilova was a violation of her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. The International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and journalists, today welcomed the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova and called on Azerbaijan to implement it. COVID-19: How IPI members face the challenge.Helsingin Sanomat Foundation Journalism Fellowship at IPI.
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