Azerbaijan political prisoners: human rights defenders’ working group report

The Working Group led by the prominent human rights defenders - Leyla Yunus and Rasul Jafarov, who have been imprisoned this month on political charges in Azerbaijan has produced a comprehensive list of political prisoners in the country aiming to draw attention of the international community to this worrying trend in Azerbaijan. Rasul Jafarov is an active participant of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum and its Working Group 1 on Democracy, Human Rights, Good Governance and Stability.

The list, updated on the 10th of August 2014 includes 98 cases of detained journalists and bloggers, human rights defenders, politicians, youth and religious activists and lifetime prisoners.

The report provides detailed information on each political prisoner, including facts and circumstances of the arrests and is based on a series of consultations that were conducted with local human rights defenders.

The list was compiled by studying relevant reports of local and international human rights organizations; examination of documents from influential international organizations that Azerbaijan is a member of (Council of Europe); monitoring of the press and court cases; examination of court verdicts and other legal documents; interviews with families, lawyers, and defence committees of the prisoners.

The report has been signed by 29 NGO representatives, lawyers, and human rights activists.

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