{"id":535,"date":"2014-07-30T15:54:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T15:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=535"},"modified":"2014-07-31T10:59:51","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T10:59:51","slug":"azerbaijan-abysmal-record-of-human-rights-continues-as-activist-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=535","title":{"rendered":"Azerbaijan: Abysmal record of human rights continues as activist arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amnesty International<\/em><\/p>\n

The persecution of human rights activists continues unabated in Azerbaijan, in spite of the obligations the country committed to as a member of Council of Europe and currently a chair of its decision making body, the Committee of Ministers, Amnesty International said today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The latest human rights defender to be targeted by the Azerbaijani authorities is Leyla Yunus who was detained today on her way to a press conference in the capital Baku. Her husband Arif Yunus was also briefly detained while visiting her in the Baku prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeyla Yunus is yet another independent voice in Azerbaijan who, for a long time, the government has tried to silence through threats and intimidation. Failing to achieve this they have now resorted to trumped up charges and detention in order to punish her for criticizing the government,\u201d said Natalia Nozadze, Amnesty International\u2019s researcher on Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

Later, the a court in Baku placed Leyla Yunus under a three-month pre-trial detention and Arif Yunus with travel restrictions. According to media reports, authorities charged Leyla and Arif Yunus with treason and other charges related to fraud and tax evasion.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International believes that the treason charges against Leyla and Arif Yunus are trumped up and are part of a process of on-going harassment against them in connection with Leyla Yunus\u2019s activism.<\/p>\n

Leyla Yunus organized a press conference last week in order to call for a boycott of the first European Games – to be held in Baku in 2015 \u2013 in recognition of the regime\u2019s dire human rights record.<\/p>\n

Prior to today\u2019s detention, she had regularly been summoned to the prosecutor\u2019s office and interrogated in connection with criminal proceedings against an independent Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirgadirov, who had been arrested on what appear to be trumped-up charges of spying for Armenia. She had repeatedly refused to answer police questions unless her passport, which was confiscated on 28 April 2014 along with her husband\u2019s passport, was returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s detention is yet another example of the unrelenting suppression of critical voices that is a regular feature of life in the country. Members of the Council of Europe must challenge the Azerbaijani authorities for flouting the principles of the human rights body which Azerbaijan is chairing at the moment,\u201d said Natalia Nozadze.<\/p>\n

The list of human rights violations regularly perpetrated by the Azerbaijani authorities is long and includes clamping down on the right to freedom of expression, assembly and association including persecution of activists, arresting them on trumped up charges and denying them the right to a fair trial. Amnesty International currently counts at least 19 prisoners of conscience behind bars solely for peacefully expressing their views.<\/p>\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\n

Persons in civilian clothing stopped Leyla Yunus\u2019s car en route to the press conference this morning and forced the driver to change course.<\/p>\n

Her family and the lawyer did not know her whereabouts for several hours until the Office of the Prosecutor General called Leyla Yunus\u2019s husband, Arif Yunus, notifying him that she had been detained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amnesty International The persecution of human rights activists continues unabated in Azerbaijan, in spite of the obligations the country committed to as a member of [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","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\/535","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=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":537,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}