Foreign

Home page

Foreign

Ago group members to visit Azerbaijan in September

29 June 2009 11:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elnur Mammadli â€“ APA. Members of Azerbaijan Human Rights Monitoring Group participated at the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg on June 24-27. According to APA, members of the group â€“ Novella Jafaroghlu, Saadat Bananiyarli and Saida Gojamanli held a press conference on the results of their visit. Human Rights defender Saida Gojamanli said they met with the Venice Commission Secretary General Gianni Buquicchio, head of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Ago group Stelian Stoian, co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan Andres Herkel and officials of the PACE Committee on Human Rights and Legal Affairs. Gojamanli said they discussed the amendments to NGO law in Azerbaijan and the issue of political prisoners.

Jafaroghlu said Ago group expressed serious concern over the amendments to the NGO law. â€œWe noted that we are against event the partial amendment to this law. The group members said they were also against the amendments. They said they would visit Azerbaijan in Septemberâ€.

Saadat Bananiyarli said Herkel couldnâ€™t make report at the session. â€œEugenia Zhivkova couldnâ€™t be a co-rapporteur further because she doesnâ€™t run for the parliament this year and Herkel has no authority to make report alone. Therefore the report will be made after the appointment of the second co-rapporteur. It is expected to be in January-February 2010â€.