16 May 2008, 15:00
Leila Yunus: Azerbaijani authorities deprive citizens of the freedom of choice
The authorities of Azerbaijan are depriving their citizens of the opportunity not only to resist falsifications during elections and violence in the country, but also to trace these crimes. This is the topic of the statement of Leila Yunus, Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy.
According to Leila Yunus, now the ruling circles of Azerbaijan "suppress the freedom of speech and clean-up the territory from uncontrolled media and independent journalists."
"Journalists are imprisoned, convicted to long terms in custody under forged charges, beaten and crippled, attack victims are tortured in prosecution bodies by falsifying investigation materials and holding dirty discrediting campaigns in controlled electronic mass media," runs the statement of the human rights activist.
As an example of restricting the space for the activity of civil society institutes, Leila Yunus has quoted a case of cancelling by the court on May 14 of registration of the NGO "Centre for Election Monitoring", which possesses operational experience of election monitoring and a nicely branched network of representatives in Azerbaijani provinces.
