10:26, 4 September 2019

Alternative list of Azerbaijani political prisoners released

A group of Azerbaijani human rights defenders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and lawyers has released an updated list of political prisoners that contains 119 names; that is, two persons more than in the list released by the "Union for the Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan".

Sixty-one persons from the previous list have been released, Intigam Aliev, the coordinator of the working group and the head of the Legal Enlightenment Society, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. The list was supplemented by new political prisoners.

"The list was supplemented by journalist Polad Aslanov and 52 people convicted within the Ganja case," Mr Aliev has stated.

He has added that the fundamental difference of the two lists is in the persons serving lifelong sentences. In the essence of charges, only three of them were recognized as political prisoners.

Intigam Aliev has recalled that when compiling the list, activists proceeded from the criteria for the concept of political prisoners established by the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe).

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 3, 2019 at 08:14 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Faik Medjid

Source: CK correspondent