14 Aug 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Statements, Campaigns, mobile, Statements
The Sport for Rights coalition condemns the conviction and harsh sentencing of Azerbaijani human rights defenders Leyla and Arif Yunus on 13 August by the Baku Court of Grave Crimes. After a trial marred by irregularities and due process violations, the court convicted the couple on politically motivated charges including illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, and fraud, and sentenced Leyla to 8.5 years in jail, and Arif to seven.
“These sentences are outrageous, and aimed purely at sanctioning the legitimate work of these two Azerbaijani human rights defenders. While the heavy sentences are no surprise, they serve to further undermine Azerbaijan’s complete disregard for the international standards of fair trial and due process”, said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH Honorary President.
“The unprecedented speed with which the Yunus trial was carried out is appalling and tells us a lot about its quality. The judgment is full of inaccuracies due to a total lack of examination of the evidence provided. Violations of international standards of the right to a fair trial were obvious”, declared Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of OMCT.
Leyla, the Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, and Arif, a historian and activist in his own right, were arrested in July and August 2014, following Leyla’s public calls for a boycott of the inaugural European Games, which were held in Baku in June 2015. Sport for Rights considered them ‘Prisoners of the Games. Leyla had also been working to compile a detailed list of cases of political prisoners, and was a strong advocate of fundamental freedoms, property rights, and peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The couple have been held in separate facilities; Leyla in the Kurdakhani investigative detention unit, and Arif at the Ministry of National Security’s investigative prison. Leyla reported being mistreated on several occasions, and Arif reported poor conditions. Both Leyla and Arif suffer from serious health problems, which have sharply deteriorated in detention, and have caused delays during trial proceedings, including on the day of the verdict, when Arif fainted and was attended to by a doctor. Nonetheless, the authorities resisted calls for their release on humanitarian grounds, and the court rushed to issue a verdict.
“The health situation of Leyla and Arif Yunus is extremely worrying and deserves the highest attention of the international community. Whilst we are thankful for the international attention brought to the case by some voices, we remain concerned by the lack of action of the Council of Europe and the European Union. It is clear that the climate of fear has reached a new low with these sentences and the killing of journalist Rasim Aliyev”,said Ane Tusvik Bonde, Regional Manager for Eastern Europe and Caucasus of the Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF).
The Yunus’ conviction takes place amidst a broader human rights crackdown in Azerbaijan, in the aftermath of the European Games and the run-up to November’s parliamentary elections. The same week as the verdict in the Yunus’ case, journalist Khadija Ismayilova also stood trial, facing serious jail time on politically motivated charges, and Rasim Aliyev, journalist and Chairman of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, died in hospital after being severely beaten. With less than three months until the parliamentary elections, the Azerbaijani authorities seem determined to continue working aggressively to silence the few critical voices left in the country.
The Sport for Rights coalition reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Leyla and Arif Yunus, as well as the other jailed journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan. Sport for Rights further calls for sustained international attention to the country and increased efforts to hold the Azerbaijani regime responsible for its human rights obligations in the pre-election environment and beyond.
Supporting organisations:
ARTICLE 19
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Civil Rights Defenders
Freedom Now
Front Line Defenders
Human Rights House Foundation
Index on Censorship
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
PEN American Centre
Platform
Solidarity with Belarus Information Office
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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07 Aug 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, mobile
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The following letter was written by Leyla Yunus, director of the Peace and Democracy Institute, who is currently on trial on spurious charges. Her husband, Arif, a historian and researcher is also on trial. The letter was originally published at Meydan.tv.
They’re planning to wipe us out in agony. Why is that? So that our pain and our deaths become a lesson for all.
They didn’t give me an opportunity to speak in court, but I want my voice to be heard. Finally, I saw Arif. We haven’t seen each other, and I haven’t heard his voice for a year! He celebrated his 60th anniversary in a prison cell, and I’ll have to mark my 60th birthday in duress as well.
We were separated on the 37th anniversary of our wedding, and I already don’t believe that we can be together in this world… with our daughter and the whole family.
Azerbaijan: Silencing human rights
Ongoing coverage of the crackdown on civil society by the government of President Ilham Aliyev
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We are both historians, and we are well aware that despotism is based on repressions. Back in the past, [Russian revolutionary Sergey] Stepniak-Kravchinsky wrote: “It’s worse than plague. Plague kills indiscriminately, while despotism chooses its victims from the cream of the nation. ”
Tofiq Yagublu, Anar, Ilgar, Intigam, Hilal, Seymour Ghazi, Khadija, Thale Bagirzade, Movsum Samedov, Yadigar Sadigov, Rasul Jafarov, Rashadat and others from NIDA. More than a hundred of the brightest and cleanest…
In the 80s Arif, and I worked in samizdat newspaper Express-Chronicle published illegally. Then, in 1986 our colleague Anatoly Marchenko died in the Chistopol prison. For me, it was a shock. I am well aware of the deaths in Stalin’s camps, since three brothers of my grandfather passed away there. But in 1986….
At that time, I realized that the terror continued in the USSR, and we had to be ready for it, but I could not assume that the independent Azerbaijan would follow the same path.
As a human rights activist with nearly 30 years of experience, I knew about torture in Azerbaijan. Still, it was hard when I was attacked in the first months of my detention, when on September 23, 2014, Major Yagubov, a young and strong man, started beating me. As a result of these beatings, I lost the ability to see normally with my left eye.
On December 11, 2014, I was dragged by my feet into a solitary confinement without explaining a reason… I heard from Arif that he had also been assaulted during the first days of his arrest…
Arif suffers from stage 3 arterial hypertension. This means strokes, paralysis, hemorrhage, and unpredictable blood pressure hikes. Now he has a tumor on his head. He has been held in a solitary confinement for a year, and he suffers from a persistent pain. It is well-known that I suffer from diabetes and liver decomposition. The EU sent an expensive medicine, but we all understand that in detention this medicine will not be able to help me…
They’re planning to wipe us out in agony. Why is that? So that our agony and our deaths become a lesson for all. If they do not shy away from destroying a well-known family, then others are easy to destroy too. Fear must live in the hearts of citizens. Fear and hopelessness. I have no illusions about this tribunal, as there was no so-called investigation.
Which articles of the law to use in order to fake accusations, make up a crime and sentence a defendant – these orders come to prosecutors and judges from the top. Preparing our indictment, prosecutors got so carried away with the falsification that even a well-known, documented fact of an unlawful destruction of our house on Shamsi Badalbeyli Street 38 was presented as a peaceful move to another apartment. Even the Administrative, Economic, Appeals and Supreme Courts acknowledged the destruction of our house. However, this was clearly an unlawful destruction of property with all assets (archives, computers) on August 11, 2011.
This obvious lie is a clear evidence of how falsified the entire investigation is. Neither the investigators nor the prosecutor fear that their lies can be refuted…
Arif is accused of transferring money from one of his accounts to another. I have witnessed so many trials against political prisoners, given a well-deserved “striped robe” to so many judges, which is why I will definitely not participate in this tribunal. But I’ll just sit with Arif and hold his hand. We both know that this is our last date. When it all breaks down, I will not be there with him … But we are both historians and we know: “wayfarer will seek his way to Lacedaemon so that we … remain faithful to the law.” As my Polish teacher taught me: “For your freedom and ours.”
This letter was originally published at Meydan.tv
24 Jul 15 | Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan News, Campaigns, mobile
Khadija Ismayilova
Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova declared her innocence at a pre-trial hearing, calling the charges against her poltically motivated.
Ismayilova, who has reported on corruption allegations involving the family of President Ilham Aliyev, is accused of embezzlement, tax evasion and abuse of power. Detained since December 2014, Ismayilova was originally charged with “incitement to suicide”, though that charge was later dropped.
The court barred members of the public, journalists, political figures and foreign diplomats, who had come to observe the proceedings, from entering the courtroom, Contact.az and Radio Free Europe reported.
Ismayilova’s trial was set to begin on 7 August.
“The decision to bar access to the public on the first day of Khadija’s trial underscores the capricious manner in which the government of President Ilham Aliyev is ruling Azerbaijan. Her’s is not the first spurious case aimed squarely at stifling critical voices in civil society. It’s vital that court officials hold the trial in a transparent manner”, Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship said.
In the past year major figures in Azerbaijan’s civil society have been silenced through pre-trial detentions and multi-year prison sentences.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the pre-trial hearing was part of the trial.
Recent coverage:
• Married political prisoners kept apart for 11 months, reunited in court
• Lawyers call for the release of Intigam Aliyev
• Azerbaijan: Silencing human rights
This article was posted on 24 July 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
09 Jul 15 | Campaigns, mobile, Statements
“Impunity is a great threat to press freedom in Russia,” said Melody Patry, Index on Censorship’s Senior Advocacy Officer. “Failing to use appropriate measures to investigate the murder of Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev is not only a denial of justice, it sends the tacit message that you can get away with killing journalists. When perpetrators are not held to account, it encourages further violence towards media professionals.”
Statement
On the 2nd anniversary of the murder of independent Russian journalist, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, we, the undersigned organisations, call for the investigation into his case to be urgently raised to the federal level.
Akhmednabiyev, deputy editor of independent newspaper Novoye Delo, and a reporter for online news portal Caucasian Knot, was shot dead on 9 July 2013 as he left for work in Makhachkala, Dagestan. He had actively reported on human rights violations against Muslims by the police and Russian army.
Two years after his killing, neither the perpetrators nor instigators have been brought to justice. The investigation, led by the local Dagestani Investigative Committee, has been repeatedly suspended for long periods over the last year and half, with little apparent progress being made.
Prior to his murder, Akhmednabiyev was subject to numerous death threats including an assassination attempt in January 2013, the circumstances of which mirrored his eventual murder. Dagestani police wrongly logged the assassination attempt as property damage, and only reclassified it after the journalist’s death, demonstrating a shameful failure to investigate the motive behind the attack and prevent further attacks, despite a request from Akhmednabiyev for protection.
Russia’s failure to address these threats is a breach of the state’s “positive obligation” to protect an individual’s freedom of expression against attacks, as defined by European Court of Human Rights case law (Dink v. Turkey). Furthermore, at a United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) session in September 2014, member States, including Russia, adopted a resolution (A/HRC/27/L.7) on safety of journalists and ending impunity. States are now required to take a number of measures aimed at ending impunity for violence against journalists, including “ensuring impartial, speedy, thorough, independent and effective investigations, which seek to bring to justice the masterminds behind attacks”.
Russia must act on its human rights commitments and address the lack of progress in Akhmednabiyev’s case by removing it from the hands of local investigators, and prioritising it at a federal level. More needs to be done in order to ensure impartial, independent and effective investigation.
On 2 November 2014, 31 non-governmental organisations from Russia, across Europe as well as international, wrote to Aleksandr Bastrykin calling upon him as the Head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, to raise Akhmednabiyev’s case from the regional level to the federal level, in order to ensure an impartial, independent and effective investigation. Specifically, the letter requested that he appoint the Office for the investigation of particularly important cases involving crimes against persons and public safety, under the Central Investigative Department of the Russian Federation’s Investigative Committee to continue the investigation.
To date, there has been no official response to this appeal. The Federal Investigative Committee’s public inactivity on this case contradicts a promise made by President Putin in October 2014, to draw investigators’ attention to the cases of murdered journalists in Dagestan.
As well as ensuring impunity for his murder, such inaction sets a terrible precedent for future investigations into attacks on journalists in Russia, and poses a serious threat to freedom of expression.
We urge the Federal Investigation Committee to remedy this situation by expediting Akhmednabiyev’s case to the Federal level as a matter of urgency. This would demonstrate a clear willingness, by the Russian authorities, to investigate this crime in a thorough, impartial and effective manner.
Supported by
ARTICLE 19
Albanian Media Institute
Analytical Center for Interethnic Cooperation and Consultations (Georgia)
Association of Independent Electronic Media (Serbia)
The Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House
Belorussian Helsinki Committee
Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
Civil Society and Freedom of Speech Initiative Center for the Caucasus
Crude Accountability
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly – Vanadzor (Armenia)
Helsinki Committee of Armenia
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
The Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
Human Rights House Foundation
Human Rights Monitoring Institute
Human Rights Movement “Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan”
Index on Censorship
International Partnership for Human Rights
International Press Institute
Kharkiv Regional Foundation -Public Alternative (Ukraine)
Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law
Moscow Helsinki Group
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
PEN International
Promo LEX Moldova
Public Verdict (Russia)
Reporters without Borders
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