Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, has slammed Azerbaijan over large-scale prosecution of most prominent human rights defenders and civil activists.
In his comment on the activity of human rights organizations, Muižnieks notes that in the summer of 2014 the Azerbaijani authorities began a wide-ranging crackdown against the most prominent human rights defenders and civil activists, many of whom were criminally prosecuted on trumped-up charges and sentenced to prison. The human rights defenders concerned were openly labeled as “traitors” and “foreign agents”.
Although several activists were released in 2016, others are still in prison, many criminal cases still remaining open. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concluded that the actual purpose of the criminal prosecution of Rasul Jafarov – head of the “Human Rights Club” NGO...
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