Warsaw: human rights defenders from from different countries picket Azerbaijani Embassy

December 12 in Warsaw, representatives of human rights organizations from Poland, Germany, Norway, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and Belarus gathered for a picket against the persecution of their Azerbaijani colleagues. They handed over to the Azerbaijani Embassy a statement adopted at the general meeting of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), recently held in Warsaw.

This year, the annual meeting of the EPDE was held without one of the board members, Anar Mammadli, Head of Azerbaijani Center for Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies, who had been imprisonedunder a politically motivated verdict.

"Azerbaijan has systematically violated the social and political rights, continues politicallymotivated persecution of democratic activists, community leaders and human rights activists on fabricated cases. In prison, the rights of political prisoners are grossly violated, they are subjected to torture and other inhuman treatment.

Platform protests against frivolous and unlawful conviction against a member of the Coordinating Council of the Platform, the head of EMDS (Azerbaijan) Anar Mammadov.

Also of concern are the repression of independent monitoring organizations and mass arrests of the prominent human rights activists Leyla Yunus and Intyqam Aliyev.

We regard such actions by the authorities of Azerbaijan as the legal lynching of the best-known organization in Azerbaijan for its independent, honest and principled stance when assessing the results of the presidential elections in Azerbaijan,” notes the statement.

Platform calls on the authorities of Azerbaijan to an immediate release of all political prisoners and their full rehabilitation, and calls on governments of democratic countries toabide by the principles of universality of human rights and the supremacy of democratic values while dealing with the government of Azerbaijan, and continue any forms of pressure on the Azerbaijani authorities, stating the inadmissibility of reprisals against representatives of civil society, as well as any actionsunduly restricting the civil rights.

Reference:
The European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) was founded in 2012 in Warsaw. Among the founding organizations there are European Exchange (Germany), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Swedish International Liberal Centre SILC, the International Society for Free Elections and Democracy (Georgia), Promo-LEX (Moldova), Center for Election Monitoring and Democratic Studies (Azerbaijan) Helsinki Citizens Assembly (Armenia), Voice (Russia), the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, the civil network of mutual support (Ukraine), the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Human Rights center "Viasna" (Belarus).