{"id":2614,"date":"2017-09-26T10:25:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T10:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2614"},"modified":"2017-09-26T10:25:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T10:25:30","slug":"azerbaijan-faces-legal-action-for-defying-european-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2614","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan Faces Legal Action for Defying European Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By PHILIPPE DAM &#8211; Advocacy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division<br \/>\n<em>Human Rights Watch<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Government should Release Ilgar Mammadov, Other Unjustly Imprisoned Activists<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Azerbaijan is finally facing consequences for keeping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2017\/05\/22\/azerbaijan-should-release-prominent-political-activist\">political activist Ilgar Mammadov<\/a> behind bars in violation of his rights and its legal obligations. On Thursday, the Council of Europe\u2019s Committee of Ministers <a href=\"https:\/\/search.coe.int\/cm\/Pages\/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=0900001680749f3c\">decided<\/a> to trigger legal infringement proceedings against the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This may seem like a baby step, but it\u2019s not. Rather, it\u2019s unprecedented and bold \u2013 something the Council of Europe has never done before. The proceedings could ultimately lead to suspending Azerbaijan\u2019s voting rights or its expulsion from the Council of Europe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In May 2014, the European Court for Human Rights delivered an unambiguous judgement: It found the detention, since February 2013, of political analyst and critic Mammadov illegal, stating it was aimed at \u201csilenc[ing] and punish[ing] him for criticizing the government.\u201d The court made it clear that Mammadov should be freed. More than three years later, Mammadov is still behind bars \u2013 despite more than a dozen resolutions by the Committee of Ministers requiring the Azerbaijani government to release Mammadov and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2015\/12\/16\/dispatches-finally-getting-tough-azerbaijan\">dedicated inquiry<\/a> launched by Secretary General Thorbj\u00f8rn Jagland into Azerbaijan\u2019s failure to do so.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Last week\u2019s decision is a welcome demonstration of resolve, and I hope it will end Baku\u2019s scorn for the court. Infringement is a lengthy process, so any decision on Azerbaijan\u2019s expulsion from the Council of Europe will not happen that soon. This gives the Azerbaijani government a last chance to do the right thing and release Mammadov.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mammadov\u2019s case is not isolated. Dozens of critics, human rights defenders, and media professionals, including blogger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2017\/05\/02\/free-azerbaijani-journalist-mehman-huseynov\">Mehman Huseinov<\/a>, arrested in February, and journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2017\/05\/31\/georgia\/azerbaijan-journalist-kidnapped-across-border\">Afgan Mukhtarli<\/a>, abducted in Tbilisi in May, are unjustly in prison in violation of human rights standards. Some activists released from prison in 2016 have been hit with travel bans and cannot work because authorities have effectively closed their organizations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The government\u2019s international partners, including the European Union, should make it clear that continued disregard for the court and the failure to release political prisoners will lead to more serious consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By PHILIPPE DAM &#8211; Advocacy Director, Europe and Central Asia Division Human Rights Watch Government should Release Ilgar Mammadov, Other Unjustly Imprisoned Activists Azerbaijan is <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2614\" title=\"Azerbaijan Faces Legal Action for Defying European Court\">[more &gt;&gt;&gt;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azerbaijan","category-azerbaijan-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2616,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2614\/revisions\/2616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}