Member of the working group, Puvan Selvanathan said that they held meetings with the representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Justice, other state agencies and Ombudsperson, representatives of the media and NGOs in Ganja.
He said that the development was observed in other sectors, along with oil and gas sectors of Azerbaijan’s economy over the past decade: “The minimum wage was increased, unemployment dropped and it had an impact on the acceleration of development, elimination of gender inequality in Baku and the regions. However, there are some problems. It is necessary to increase dependence on the oil and gas sector and develop human rights-based business. We witnessed in our meetings with government agencies that there are different approaches to the human rights, rights of refugees and IDPs are highlighted.”
Selvanathan noted that problems such as corruption shouldn’t be an obstacle for small and medium enterprises: “Some civil society organizations complained of the difficulties faced during the registration. We can not say that the steps taken on NGOs today are directly related to the activities of NGOs. Unfortunately, we could not meet with imprisoned NGO leaders. They are at the pre-investigation stage. In any case, the investigation is underway and we should wait for the outcomes. We can’t comment on it till these processed are transparently completed.”
Praising the work of ASAN Service centers, Selvanathan said cases of corruption can be more effectively reduced by cooperating with civil society in accordance with law. He highly appreciated the activities on generating revenues through the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan: “The Oil Fund is quite progressive in terms of managing national resources. We proposed that SOCAR should put much emphasis on increasing transparency in all sharing agreements and employment contracts. State programs on human rights must reflect relations in the area of human rights and business more unambiguously”.
Mr Selvanathan also spoke about the main recommendations given to the government. According to him, the government needs to respect insurance of the dialogue between different participants in society: “Azerbaijan’s economic development has to lean on human rights and open dialogue. The Working Group came to the same conclusion. What’s important is that freedom of expression of society’s members and compliance with the law should be ensured”.
Selvanathan remarked that Azerbaijan’s development tendency and the people’s attitude toward this development are positive: “it’s important to define which other fields we should put emphasis on in future and to make sure that everyone benefits from this development”.
He also reminded that the Working Group is to present their report covering their observation and recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in June 2015.
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