Source:
Human Rights House Foundation
(HRHF)
In a
letter to President Ilham Aliyev
, independent lawyers, barristers or attorneys-at-law, express concern over the sentencing of their colleague, human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev: “We call upon you, Mr President, to immediately and unconditionally release Intigam Aliyev and rehabilitate his civil and political rights.”
After six months in detention on spurious charges Intigam Aliyev was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, according to the HRHF press release on July 14, 2015.
Florian Irminger
, Head of Advocacy at the Human Rights House Foundation, told Meydan TV: “Intigam Aliyev is not just any lawyer. A teacher to a generation of Azerbaijanis, he also embodies the Council of Europe, its values and its history. He embodies the idea that rule of law and human rights should be at the centre of every Council of Europe country. That is why the Council of Europe needs to mobilise to get him out of prison.”
“Intigam Aliyev’s health condition has continuously worsened in prison. Enough now is enough: he needs medical care, and he needs it outside of the prison! It is absolutely contrary to basic humanitarian principles that he is denied health care, kept in miserable detention conditions. We believe this is the way the authorities are punishing him in prison, in addition to simply detaining him. We call for an immediate release for humanitarian reasons,” Irminger added.
The letter, signed by 95 lawyers from 24 countries, reads the following: “We identify with Intigam Aliyev because we believe everybody should have a right to a fair trial, just as he does. Yet, Intigam Aliyev’s trial was marred by procedural irregularities and violations of the right to a public hearing and the right to access the files and documents of the case.” In addition, Intigam Aliyev’s attorney
managed to prove
that he was not guilty of implementing projects without registration, which he was charged with.
All 95 lawyers express their sympathy for Intigam Aliyev, as a unique lawyer. Not only is he a teacher for a generation of young Azerbaijanis, but he is also an expert of the European legal system, one of the first Azerbaijani lawyers to utilize the European Court of Human Rights and the regional tutor in the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) programme of the Council of Europe.
In the letter the lawyers further identify with Intigam Aliyev: “For all of us, being a lawyer is a unique privilege. We identify with Intigam Aliyev because in Azerbaijan, any of us could be arrested simply for doing the same work as he did.”
The lawyers include colleagues of Intigam Aliyev, from various Eastern European countries, from within the Human Rights House Network project International Law in Advocacy, of which he is the national expert in Azerbaijan. The signing lawyers also include lawyers invested in human rights, from the United States and Canada, Egypt or Iran, as well as Western European countries.
In a statement published on the HRHF website on July 14, 2015, Irminger underlined the importance of supporting human rights defenders in Azerbaijan: “The imprisonment of Intigam Aliyev is part of a systematic crackdown on human rights in the country. Arbitrary detention has been used to silence critical voices in Azerbaijan for years, whilst at the same time they exhibit a modern state through major international events. This letter and attention from around 100 lawyers from three continents witness that the outside world are not fooled by the promotion.”
In their letter, the lawyers highlight that the detention conditions of Intigam Aliyev have an impact on his already poor health:
“He suffers from severe chronic headaches in addition to nerve pain and has reportedly been denied of appropriate health care to date.” In their letter, the lawyers urge the Azerbaijani authorities to respect “basic humanitarian principles” and ensure that Intigam Aliyev is receiving “complete and necessary treatment for all medical concerns.”
