Yeni Musavat, BBC Monitoring Service,
20, May 2008

"If the imprisoned journalists are not set free, the report we are going to submit to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in June will be very critical," the PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan, Andres Herkel who is in Baku on a visit, told a news conference yesterday, Radio Liberty reported.

"I am very pessimistic about a democratic election if the electoral code and the law 'On freedom of assembly' are not amended in line with demands put by the Venice Commission," Herkel said.

The co-rapporteur said that freedom of assembly mainly depends on the implementation of this law rather than its adoption. He added that the ban on candidates' propaganda via the state TV channel under the amendments recently proposed to the electoral code was unacceptable.

"All candidates should equally use state television," he said.

Herkel also complained about the large amount of deposit demanded from presidential candidates (300,000 - 10m manats) [363,328 - 12.1m dollars].

The co-rapporteur said that at the meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the latter told them that the Council of Europe reputation fell after the developments in Armenia [post-election riots]. "However, I said it was wrong that one Council of Europe member country uses in its own favour some event taking place in another member country," Herkel said.

Herkel called on the government to allow the opposition to hold rallies. "We urged the opposition to take part in the presidential election. The decision of boycott is wrong," he said.

Touching on the arrest of two correspondents with the [opposition] Azadliq newspaper, Herkel said such incidents should not take place in a CE member state.

AZERBAIJAN PARLIAMENT COMMENCES DISCUSSIONS ON AMENDMENTS TO ELECTORAL CODE AND LAW ON FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY