Azerbaijani activists outraged at CoE decision on Ilgar Mamedov's case

Azerbaijani activists have sharply criticized the decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) on the case of oppositionist Ilgar Mamedov. In their opinion, the CoE's Committee of Ministers should have demanded Mamedov's liberation, and not be satisfied with the Azerbaijani authorities' promises to adopt some legal acts that would allow to enforce the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on his case.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in March 2014, Ilgar Mamedov, the leader of the democratic oppositional movement "Republican Alternative" (ReAl), was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was accused of organizing protests of residents of the city of Ismayilli, who were dissatisfied with bureaucrats' arbitrariness.

The issue of the enforcement of the ECtHR's decision on Mamedov's case was considered at the sitting of the CoE's Committee of Ministers on June 6-7 in Strasbourg. The members of the Committee pointed to the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, adopted on February 10, 2017, which "according to the authorities of the country, should result in legislative measures for the enforcement" of the ECtHR's decision on Mamedov's case.

Anar Mamedli, a member of the civil society working group on compiling a list of political prisoners, believes that "either the Committee of Ministers had been incorrectly informed, or it deliberately evades the principled position."

In the opinion of Rasul Jafarov, the head of the Human Rights Club this decision "puts the authority of the organization under attack."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.