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Joint Group on Human Rights holds meeting

10 April 2015 09:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ramiz Mikayiloglu – APA. The Joint Group on Human Rights, which resumed operating on the initiative of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE) Thorbjørn Jagland, has held its 3rd meeting on April 9, Sahib Mammadov, the Group’s secretary and Chairman of the Citizens Labor Rights Protection League, told APA.

Alexander Gessel, head of the department for political affairs of the Council of Europe and special representative of CoE Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, who is also a member of the Group, participated in the meeting. A number of issues of human rights– freedom of association, the right to real estate, prisoners, including Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov, taken hostage by Armenians in Kalbajar – were discussed during the meeting. Sahib Mammadov said the group that had been operating since 6 months ago when it was resumed its work was given final assessment for its activities. The co-chairs of the Group – Fuad Alasgarov, Head of the Department for Work with Law-Enforcement Bodies at the Presidential Administration, and Samad Seyidov, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE – spoke about the work carried out. Alasgaov stressed that cooperation between the Joint Group on Human Rights and the Commission on Pardon Issues under the President of Azerbaijan has well been built.

Gessel praised activities of the Joint Group on Human Rights, adding that he is willing to attend further meetings of the Group.

When discussing the issue of Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov, who had been taken hostage in Kalbajar, Gessel said he would inform the CoE secretary general about this problem. Participants in the meeting decided to appeal on the Group’s behalf to a number of international organizations, including the Council of Europe, over the issue of the two hostages.

Note that, the Joint Group on Human Rights, which is comprised of representatives of Azerbaijan’s civil society and government, resumed operating on the initiative of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE) Thorbjørn Jagland and held its first meeting on October 22, 2014.