The International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) has called on French President Macron to urge his Azerbaijani counterpart to release prisoners of conscience.
President Aliyev is in France today meeting with President Macron and a host of political and business leaders.
In an open letter
published
by IPHR yesterday, Rasul Jafarov (Human Rights Club) and Brigitte Dufour (IPHR) wrote that they “are deeply concerned at the deplorable human rights situation in Azerbaijan with over 100 opposition supporters, journalists, editors, bloggers, religious activists and others held on politically-motivated charges in Azerbaijani jails.”
The letter focuses on the case of the leader of the Republican Alternative Movement, Ilgar Mammadov, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in March 2014. Mammadov remains in prison, although the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that his rights to liberty and a fair trial were violated, and that his imprisonment is intended to silence his criticism of the government. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has triggered infringement proceedings against Azerbaijan for refusing to release Mammadov, the
first time
the committee has taken such a drastic step against any country.
“We believe that your intervention can make a difference in the cases of Ilgar Mammadov and other political prisoners in Azerbaijan and trust that human rights will be high on the agenda at your meeting with President Aliyev in Paris on 20 July 2018,” the letter concludes.
Apart from President Macron, President Aliyev met today with the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher; the President of the National Assembly, François de Rugy; executives from major corporations such as Total and Airbus; and other political and business leaders.
