ASSA-Irada,
4, April 2008

The Azerbaijani government does not accept allegations on the presence of political prisoners in the country, a senior official has said.

A number of local non-governmental organizations and rights defenders have forwarded a new list of such prisoners to the Council of Europe, calling for the appointment of a special rapporteur dealing with the issue.

The head of the President's Office socio-political department, Ali Hasanov, told reporters that the "political prisoners" issue has been under discussion since Azerbaijan was admitted to the CE. The government had assumed a commitment then to reconsider the cases of those regarded by NGOs as such and to pardon some of them, and this commitment has been fully fulfilled.

"We do not accept the presence of the 'political prisoners' problem in Azerbaijan. If someone is discontent with the rulings of Azerbaijani courts, they may freely appeal to the European court. If citizens reserve this right in any given country, the political prisoners claim is nothing but a concoction."

Former chairman of the CE Parliamentary Assembly Monitoring Committee, German representative Eduard Lintner said the CE intended to solve the political prisoners problem in cooperation with Azerbaijani authorities and that the issue should be profoundly studied. A special commission will be established for the purpose in the coming days.

He played down the government's statements. "Azerbaijani authorities state that these persons had been detained over committing crimes. But there is an opinion in some CE circles that they were arrested over their political beliefs. The CE plans to heed attention to the issue until its spring session."