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Azerbaijani parliament begins discussion on amendments to NGO law

30 June 2009 11:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayev â€“ APA. Azerbaijani parliament holds next meeting of its extraordinary session on Tuesday. The parliamentarians are discussing the amendments to the law on non-governmental organizations. Representatives of the US embassy in Azerbaijan, Council of Europe Information Office in Azerbaijan and other international organizations are also attending the meeting, APA reports.

Chairman of the parliament commission on legal policy and state-building Ali Huseynov said the project was elaborated on the basis of various proposals. â€œThere were talks that the draft law was removed from the agenda. No one have to forget that removal is a legal procedure. The question is solved not by wordsâ€.

The committee chairman spoke about the amendments and said the points about administrative responsibility of the NGOs for registration and their forcible registration were removed from the draft and registered capital was reduced from 50 000 AZN to 10 000 AZN. According to the draft, foreigners living in Azerbaijan have a right to establish NGO and there is a new norm for establishing NGO offices and branches.

According to the law, foreign NGOâ€™s can operate in Azerbaijan on the basis of agreement. Huseynov said the proposal of NGO audit was also removed from the draft. The committee chairman said draft amendments to the law on state duty were also removed from the parliament agenda automatically.

He said the discussions over the amendments to the law on freedom of faith were continued without changes.

MP Panah Huseyn expressed concern over the uncontrolled harvest season in the regions. â€œThere is no customer who can pay even 6-8 kopeck for kg of crops. There is no intention to buy it. The technical equipments are instructed to be given to the rich peopleâ€. Huseyn spoke about the education problems as well and said all these couldnâ€™t be solved without reforms. Speaker Asadov said these ideas coincided with his opinion.

MP Baba Taghiyev said there were 40 million Azerbaijanis in Iran who were contributing to the strengthening of the country, but their rights were violated there. â€œTheir rights to education are not recognized thereâ€.

MP Zahid Oruj said Section 907 was damaging the US-Azerbaijan relations. He said US assistance to Nagorno Karabakh showed its attitude to Karabakh problem.

Asadov said the issue of US assistance to Nagorno Karabakh was discussed at the parliament foreign relations committee and other committees as well. â€˜This issue will be addressed. Any assistance to Nagorno Karabakh could be made only via Azerbaijanâ€.

Then lawmakers began to discuss the current issues.