Separate hearings were held in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) about the recent pressures exercised against human rights, democracy, and democratic institutions in Azerbaijan. The hearing was initiated by the Netherlands delegate Peter Omchik. The head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, Hermine Naghdalyan, informed Aravot.am about it in a telephone conversation. Prior to the hearing, such questions are also voiced in the plenary session. Rebukes sound against Azerbaijan. “First, during the report of the Bureau, when the question referred to the Bureau member, the Head of the French Delegation René Rouquet’s banning access to Azerbaijan.
Rebukes and demands were voiced also during asking questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Mr. Elmar Mammadyarov, as well as during the free discussions. In other words, during the three most important events of the first working day, Azerbaijan’s name and example on the negative background was voiced.” Recall that today the PACE summer session launched in Strasbourg. In about 1-1.5 months ago, Azerbaijan took over the presidency in the PACE. Hermine Naghdalyan assures that in the meantime, the overwhelming part of the European delegates has quite negative attitude towards Azerbaijan, given the obtained large-scale information about the pressure against democratic institutions and retreat of democracy and human rights in our neighboring country. The hearings were about the pressure exercised against the public institutions in Azerbaijan. The hearing was attended by the representatives from Azerbaijani NGO, who presented the situation in detail. The report on “The existence and situation of political prisoners in Azerbaijan” was sent by the PACE Bureau to the Monitoring Committee to be included in the general report on monitoring of Azerbaijan, but today, during the plenary session, Ireland’s delegate Michael McNamara asked to put the question to voting. The delegates supported him and at the plenary session, by the majority decision, consent was reached to resume the report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. This is also an example of how the Europeans are dissatisfied with Azerbaijani authorities and the domestic policy conducted by them,” said Hermine Naghdalyan.
To the question of Aravot that if the situation is such how the Azerbaijani delegation Elkhan Suleymanov managed to collect 58 signatures to prevent the powers of the Armenian delegation and to impose sanctions for Armenia, our interlocutor said that it is the result of Azerbaijani lobby caviar and petrodollar policy, which is clear to many of us. “This proposal is also an example of the policy or code of conduct that is applied by Azerbaijan by diverting the public attention from the vulnerable questions related to them. I think that on Friday, this proposal to be discussed in the Bureau will achieve its true resolution. However, in my opinion, it will not be resolved in the initiators’ desired direction, because still in Yerevan we had taken steps in this direction, and during these two days of meetings, we lead explanatory work for the European delegates to understand correctly the substantiated bankruptcy of the proposal. I think that we will succeed, because many people understand that the proposal does not have a serious substantiation,” said Hermine Naghdalyan.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
