Rights defenders claim violation of prisoners' rights and torture in Azerbaijani jails

Most Azerbaijani jails were built in Soviet times and fail to meet modern standards. The rights of arrested and convicted persons are violated. Corruption, administration arbitrariness and torture are common in penitentiary institutions, the Centre for the Protection of Political Prisoners (CPPP) has stated.

The experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have stated the recent aggravation of the situation with the protection of prisoners' rights and their detention conditions.

According to Zumrud Yagmur, a writer and a CPPP member, now, there are more than 150 political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is among European leaders in the number of prisoners, Ogtai Gyulyalyev, the coordinator of the CPPP, has stated.

"Azerbaijan has 248 prisoners per every 100,000 of population; this is the third place in Europe," Mr Gyulyalyev has added.

Such great number of prisoners leads to jail overcrowding. Due to the lack of space, inmates sometimes have to sleep in turn. Also, the quality of prison food is extremely poor.

Ogtai Gyulyalyev has also pointed to the practice of torturing prisoners and recalled the deaths of the blogger Mekhman Galandarov in April 2017 in the Baku SIZO (pre-trial prison), and of Elmir Akhundov, a resident of the Gazakh District this autumn in a local police station.

The report states kidnappings, when people are illegally detained "for many days and even weeks" without any court decisions. These were the cases with Ahsan Nuruzade, a religious activist, Fatima Movlamly, an activist, and others.