A number of Azerbaijani human rights activists have criticised a recent amnesty bill that covers up to 20,000 prisoners, calling it a failed attempt to ‘manipulate’ the public.
The 17 activists issued their joint statement on Wednesday.
The amnesty bill was drafted by the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev on 15 December and was signed by parliament on 19 December. A number of convicts have already been released as a result of the amnesty, but no detained journalists, activists, or opposition figures have been covered by the bill.
Yousef Bardouka
According to their statement, the activists said ‘the bill failed to address the problem of general prison overcrowding and did not make a significant contribution to the release of political prisoners’.
‘Azerbaijan ranks first among Council of Europe countries in terms of the number of prisoners per capita. Secondly, the current Azerbaijani government’s use of political arrest and unjust arrests has resulted in the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan reaching approximately 400. This is the highest number of political prisoners since Azerbaijan’s accession to the Council of Europe’, the statement read.
The statement added that the ‘human rights crisis continues and the latest amnesty bill is inconsistent with the principles of transitional justice’.
Samad Rahimli, one of the statement’s authors and a board member of the pro-democracy 3rd Republican Platform, told OC Media that the bill contradicted ‘the very essence of an amnesty’, citing its release of 13 Shia Muslims who only had six months left to serve.
‘These people could have been released from prison as a condition of serving their sentences or in exchange for a more lenient sentence; they could have been released using standard methods known to us’, Rahimli said.
According to RFE/RL, ‘approximately 20 people from the list of political prisoners have already been released in accordance with the latest amnesty bill’.
However, while the amnesty appears to have seen the release of people believed to have been convicted on political grounds, Rahimli stressed that the amnesty act served as a form of propaganda.
‘They want to show that we are releasing them, that the process has begun, in order to reduce international pressure. I plan this in advance and recommend releasing these people now or in six months; it makes no difference. This amnesty is a disgrace’, said Rahimli.
Fuad Ahmadli, a formerly convicted member of the opposition Popular Front Party, wrote on social media that just a week before his release in 2019, he was offered a reduction in to his sentence due to the decriminalisation of one of the crimes for which he was convicted. Ahmadli rejected the offer.
‘Since one of the charges against me had been decriminalised, I was to be released from the unserved portion of my sentence. But the parliament adopted a decision to decriminalise and humanise criminal policy coincides with 20 October 2017. That is, two years and 10 months before my trial’.
According to BBC Azerbaijan he was detained in August 2016 and ‘charged with transferring subscribers’ personal data to a third party at Azerfon LLC, where he worked as an operator’.
Ahmadli stated that he said ‘no’ to this offer and mentioned that ‘this decision was made solely for the sake of “check mark”, that I didn't need a “week of justice” ’, and opted to finish out his term.
As part of the amnesty, singer Deniz Asadova was released 22 days before the end of her prison term, which Ahmadli hinted as being similar to the offer he received but rejected.
Despite the previous announcement by the government that it would be ‘largest amnesty’ to date in 2025 and would cover 20,000 prisoners, lately, pro-government media have been writing that the amnesty would cover over 10,000 prisoners.
‘According to the preliminary list, approximately 5,000 people are planned to be released from prison. In addition, the number of prisoners whose sentences will be reduced by six months is approximately 3,000. The amnesty will cover a total of over 10,000 people serving sentences other than incarceration’, wrote the pro-government outlet Okhu.az on 19 December.
Aytan Farhadova
