In its summer session, the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) passed a draft resolution on pressures exerted against the investigative journalists writing about corruption in Azerbaijan, which was initiated by the PACE Armenian delegation, on behalf of Armenia’s delegation member, Arpine Hovhannisyan.
The draft resolution was published on the PACE site hours ago. Under this resolution, the Assembly expresses concern about the pressures exerted against the investigative journalists implementing corruption disclosures in Azerbaijan.
And as the most vivid example, they state the incident happened with the Azerbaijan investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.
The draft resolution indicates that according to the “Transparency International”, in 2013, Azerbaijan ranked the 127th by the index of corruption, which also speaks about the scale and territorial coverage of corruption in Azerbaijan. In the resolution, Azerbaijan is ranked among the countries where the slander was viewed as a criminal offense, which is already applied to the online media.
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With this draft, the PACE once again calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to release immediately all detained persons, who were imprisoned for expressing their opinions and views. Aravot.am asked the PACE Armenian delegation member Arpine Hovhannisyan how beneficial it is to put such resolutions into circulation, Ms. Hovhannisyan replied, “Putting the resolutions into circulation is a method or working in PACE, a tool. The PACE delegates’ signing underneath these resolutions means giving a political consent to the estimations and concerns mentioned in the resolution, specifically to Azerbaijan in this case. Such initiatives are also a necessary platform for discussion in the PACE. We express our concern, which is shared by many delegates.”
Arpine Hovhannisyan stated, “There are serious problems with human rights, political prisoners, journalists, and democracy in Azerbaijan, which were also voiced by our European partners. Hence, we decided to come up with the initiative, since this is such a global problem, which deserves that the PACE should come up with a speech, which should pass defined procedures. The theme of such initiatives is pan-European. The initiative is important to the extent that it will remain on the agenda for about two years and will be constantly put into circulation.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
