EU Parliament condemns Azerbaijan’s spate of sentences against journalists and researchers
Three MEPs have issued a statement condemning Azerbaijan’s recent sentencing of journalists, researchers, and activists, calling on the EU to impose sanctions on Baku.
The statement was issued on Monday.
Munir Satouri, the chair of the EU Parliament’s Human Rights Subcommittee, Nils Ušakovs, chair of the delegation for relations with the South Caucasus, and Dan Barna, the parliament’s permanent rapporteur on Azerbaijan, called the arrests ‘a new phase of relentless pressure on critics of the regime’ in their statements.
‘We recall that parliament repeatedly demanded that any future partnership agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan be made conditional on the release of all political prisoners and the improvement of the human rights situation in the country’, the statement read.
The parliamentarians said they were ‘appalled at the shockingly harsh prison sentences’ in politically motivated cases in Azerbaijan given to journalists, researchers, and activists over the last days.
‘None of them or the other political prisoners in the country should have been prosecuted in the first place. But the extraordinarily heavy sentences mark yet another escalation in the relentless repression of regime critics in Azerbaijan’, the statement read.
Throughout June, Azerbaijan sentenced six journalists from Abzas Media, one journalist from RFE/RL, and researcher and OC Media contributor Bahruz Samadov to lengthy prison sentences.
Samadov was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of treason on 23 June, having attempted to take his own life in prison days before the court’s verdict.
Aytan Farhadova
On 20 June, Abzas Media’s staff — its director Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifgizi), journalists Hafiz Babali, Nargiz Absalamova, and Elnara Gasimova, and coordinator and activist Mahammad Kekalov — in addition to RFE/RL’s Farid Mehralizada, were all given sentences ranging from seven and a half to nine years on currency smuggling charges.
The EU Parliament’s statement stressed that the journalists were sentenced ‘based on trumped-up charges’.
The parliament also condemned Azerbaijan’s sentencing of ethnic Talysh researcher Igbal Abilov to 18 years in prison on charges of treason. The resolution has also condemned the sentencing of opposition politician Tofig Yagublu to nine years on charges of fraud and forgery.
‘These are just some cases out of the staggering number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, which has grown rapidly to almost 400 over the last couple of years’, the statement read.
‘We reiterate in this context [the] parliament’s calls for EU sanctions to be imposed under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime on responsible Azerbaijani officials and call on the High Representative/Vice-President and the European External Action Service to avoid any steps that would risk emboldening the regime on the current path’.
On Monday, the EU’s Diplomatic Service issued a brief statement calling the heavy prison sentences a ‘worrying development’.
Yousef Bardouka
‘Independent journalism plays a vital role in upholding transparency, accountability, and informed public discourse’, the statement read, adding that the EU ‘calls on Azerbaijan to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, uphold its international obligations, and take immediate steps to ensure a safe and enabling environment for all journalists and media workers’.
They said the EU ‘remains committed to continue the dialogue and cooperation on human rights with Azerbaijan’.
OC Media
