Strasbourg, 22.09.2020 – Rapporteurs from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have welcomed the decision of the Baku Appeals Court to release jailed Azerbaijani opposition politician Tofig Yagublu into house arrest while he awaits a 28 September 2020 hearing in his case.
“The conversion of his detention into house arrest is a welcome first step,” said PACE’s monitoring co-rapporteurs for Azerbaijan, Sir Roger Gale (United Kingdom, EC/DA) and Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), together with the Assembly’s co-rapporteur on reported cases of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC).
“This gives us hope that the Azerbaijani authorities will address our concerns over Mr Yagublu’s sentence and will review his case in line with Council of Europe standards for a fair trial. We are also relieved that Mr Yagublu has decided to end his hunger strike,” they concluded.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe