Azerbaijan National Committee of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights

Torture, Ill-Treatment and Police Misconduct

The opposition street rallies of pre-election period accompanied in 2005 by police misconduct. For example, during the meeting of May 25, a police arrested at least 45 and beaten about 300 demonstrators and at least 1 journalist. On September 25, police arrested 42 and beaten more than 200 people, including at least 2 journalists. On October 1, about 15 oppositionists were arrested and at least 5 journalists were harassed by police. On October 9, about 27 people were arrested, 27 demonstrators got injuries, and about 10 journalists were beaten. Announce of return of political emigrant Rasul Quliyev on October 17 resulted in arrests of more than 40 opposition activists. At least 29 people were arrested, hundreds demonstrators were injured including 12 journalists during dispersal of allowed meeting of November 26. The arrested persons spent up to 15 days in the police detention centers with basic conditions. There were allegations on the tortures and ill-treatment after the arrest.

For example, Mr. Natiq Efendiyev, former head of the police department of Gandja and political prisoner in 2000-2005, and currently the deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Party, was detained on 17^th October 2005, on charges of plotting a coup d’état, and reportedly due to his close relationship to Mr. Rasul Quliyev. He was detained several weeks at the organised crime unit of the Ministry of Interior instead of remand prison of Ministry of Justice. The advocate alleged that he had been tortured and consequently hospitalised in Baku. Some other detainees on this case complained for deterioration of their health.
In February 2005, the OSCE published a report on monitoring of the serial political trials in 2003-2004. As result of the mission, the OSCE recommended that “the authorities should undertake a prompt, serious, wide-ranging and independent investigation of all allegations of torture and mistreatment. Any individual found responsible for perpetrating or instigating acts of torture or ill treatment should prosecuted. The authorities should undertake a prompt, serious, wide-ranging and independent investigation of all allegations of the excessive use of force by security forces on 15 and 16 October 2003, and during the detentions of suspects during the following days. The authorities should take all necessary steps to ensure that law enforcement measures are commensurate with circumstances and do not exceed the needs of enforcement, and law enforcement personnel are held accountable for excesses. The authorities should ensure that victims of torture, ill treatment or excessive use of force are able to seek compensation. The authorities should also ensure that all those who are granted compensation by court also receive such.”¹⁰ However, only reaction of government for this detailed publication was participation in two OSCE Baku Office hosted discussions on changes in pre-trial procedures in Azerbaijan
The Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe stated in June that “firmly condemns the recourse to violence and the maltreatment and torture inflicted on political prisoners and presumed political prisoners and calls on the Azerbaijani authorities to put an end to the impunity enjoyed by certain units of the security forces. It is profoundly shocked that members of the organized crime unit, which serves as a torture centre in Azerbaijan, have been promoted in recognition of the services they have rendered.”¹¹ However, Vilayat Eyvazov, the head of the Organized Crime Unit was promoted to deputy minister of interior in April 2005.  
There were reports on the ill-treatment of non-political criminals in pre-trial detention. In November, the police officer of Ganja City Police Directorate Koroglu Qasimov was dismissed from police and arrested under Article 309.2 of Crime Code (exceeding of power). According to the information of Ministry of Interior and media, the police officer has beaten and raped the suspects of steeling, mother and son. The colleagues of the policeman reported on the event to the chief, while liberated mother later denied this information to journalists. In December 17, the 47-years old Mr. Nariman Veliyev, a suspect of the burglary of a flat of judge of Court of Appeal, had thrown himself from 3^rd floor of Binaqadi district police administration one hour after he was delivered to investigator. The case was opened on Article 125 of Crime Code (driving to suicide).
In March, there was disclosed a group of criminals including a high rank officers of the Department of Criminal Search of Ministry of Interior who dealt about 9 years with kidnapping, ordered killings, etc. The investigation still continues.
In January, a new Department of Internal Security was established in the Ministry of Interior to prevent the police abuses.
In several post-trial prisons, the excessive police force was used against the prisoners on February 19. They were held hours at the cold, beaten, deprived breakfast and lunch, some their belongings were baselessly confiscated. There were several cases of reported suicides in Qobustan prison and prison #8.
In May, the experts of European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) visited the prisons in Azerbaijan, including those where the riots and police raids happened. The CPT report still is not available.
There still are concerns on the extraditions of foreign suspects of terrorism from Azerbaijan to the countries with practice of torture or even remaining death penalty. For example, on October 26, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal of Kurdish journalist woman Elif Pelit and decided that she will be extradited to Turkey where she is accused of the membership of PKK/KADEK which official news agency is “Mesopotamia” Pelit works for. In early December, two Turkish Kurds, Ahmed Kirboga and Atesh Edip were extradited in Turkey at the basis of judgment of Azerbaijani court. All of them were arrested in Azerbaijani exclave Nakhchivan when tried to cross the border illegally.
In the connection to the alleged American secret detention centers in the countries of Council of Europe, the local media quoted a Turkish minister of transportation Binali Yildirim about landing in Baku of alleged CIA planes on October 30 and November 15 in its way to the Netherlands.
Arbitrary Arrest and Detention
The problem of political prisoners was actual in 2005. Being of obligations of Azerbaijan before the Council of Europe¹², solution of this issue was discussed by Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe in June.¹³
On June 10-11, the joint Task Force on Political Prisoners was established by representatives of Parliament, Government and human rights groups. They elaborated the proposals on partial solution of the problem by local remedies, and decided that most complex cases have to be addressed to the European Court of Human Rights. As result, 39 political prisoners were liberated, from 13 prisoners were lifted political accusations and reduced sentences. However, later this work was stopped.
Other result of work of Task Force was a process of lifting of previous convictions from the prominent opposition activists who were sentenced for participation in the protest actions in October 2003. That allowed the former political prisoners to participate in Parliamentary elections. However, the ordinary oppositionists as well as renowned campaigner for religious freedom Ilqar Ibrahimoglu failed to get positive decision of the courts.
In February, the 20-year-old oppositionist Algaiyt Maharramov, sentenced in 2004 for 3-years imprisonment for participation in the post-election protests in October 2003 died in colony #17. The so called “October cases” were observed by OSCE mission. In its 98-pages report published in February, was concluded that trials “were not in compliance with a variety of the government of Azerbaijan’s OSCE commitments on human rights and rule of law. Some aspects of the conduct of the trials and treatment of the defendants, moreover, appeared clearly to contravene Azerbaijan’s legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Convention Against Torture, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Convention on the Prevention of Torture... The Criminal Procedure Code of Azerbaijan does provide the basis for trials in accord with international standards, to the extent that the laws are implemented fully, impartially and fairly. Unfortunately, this was not always the case in regard to the trials in question.”
That created a background for the pardons of March 20 and June 20 granted freedom to 52 and 30 political prisoners respectively. The lists of political prisoners reduced till 70 persons. However, the latest political events during election campaign resulted in new arrests with alleged political motivation, and at the end 2005, there are at least 13 new alleged political prisoners. Arrest one of them, ex-President of National Academy of Sciences, 70-years old Academician Eldar Salayev in October provoked the wide protests of scientists and human rights activists, and he was released on bail.
Many oppositionists were arbitrarily arrested in administrative order for up to 15 days, usually in connection to the meetings, street rallies or their work in the electoral headquarters. In the cases of “preventive arrests” before the scheduled public events, the arrests were ill-founded even from formal point of view (e.g. resistance to police in the person’s home where police entered without warrant).
Conditions in Prisons and Detention Facilities
In the end 2005, there were approximately 17,000 prisoners, including 2,000 people in pre-trial detention. 

 

On January 1, the anti-corruption legislation entered into force. Immediately, in mid-January began a scandal around the illegal liberation of 14 prisoners of colony #7. The prison director was dismissed and committed attempt of suicide, while some other officials of prison administration were dismissed from job position and even arrested. Since the time, about 30 high rank officers of MQIBI were dismissed.

On January 28, the President decreed a dismissal of a Head of Main Administration of Execution of Judgments (MQIBI), Gen. Aydin Qasimov. Consequently, there were several statements explaining that dismissals in MQINI are related with corruption, bad provision of prisons, etc.
In February 08, the Prosecutor’s Office began an investigation of alleged liaison between the prison officials and imprisoned authoritative criminal N.Salifov, which permitted him to manage serious crimes outside and organize the illegal criminal funds (“obschak”) inside of the prisons. Soon, on February 15, more than 100 prisoners of one of most privileged prison #11 began a riot reacting for administration’s efforts to destroy prison’s obschak. The prisoners took a part of the territory under the control and occupied a dormitory roof. At the next day, the riot police entered the prison and suppressed the prisoners’ protest. There were no casualties, however several prisoners demonstrated unsuccessful attempts of suicide. Dozens prisoners were arrested.
On February 16 night, N.Salifov was transferred in the remand prison for investigation. In October 7, he was sentenced for 16 years for a set of crimes including racket and rape.
The pressure at obschaks provoked some protest actions and disorders in Qobustan prison and prisons #12 and 13. The government responded on February 19 by riot police operations in some prisons where allegedly strong obschaks existed, even in those where had been not riots at all. The human rights groups which were allowed to visit these prisons reported on the arrests of alleged obschak supervisors, beating and intimidation of prisoners, confiscation of their belongings. Since October, began the trials over the participants of February disorders in prisons.
The Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe stated in June that it was “shocked by the violence with which the mutiny attempts in certain prisons were put down in February 2005… The Assembly is also still worried about the conditions of detention and restrictions on the rights of prisoners and their families.”¹⁴
In June, July and October, the groups of former death row prisoners held the hunger-strikes protesting against replacement of their death sentences by life imprisonment.
The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) reported at December 6 ceremony of 10^th anniversary of ICRC anti-tuberculosis program in prisons that in January-November, 63 prisoners and 2 officers died from TB. 920 TB patients were detained in specialized TB prison #3 at the end of year, of them 5 women. That is an improvement in comparison with 2003 (157 deaths) and 2004 (93 deaths). On November 30, one of the life prisoners, N.Mirzoyev lodged a first ever case against the administration of Bayil prison claiming that was infected by TB as result of accommodation together the TB-ill prisoner.¹⁵
In February, MQIBI dissolved the Public Council responsible for NGO work in prisons. However, the local NGOs were allowed to monitor the prison conditions.
In the territory of self-proclaimed “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”, the local NGO “Center of Civil Initiatives” conducted on November 15 a seminar for personnel of Shusha prison on the European prison standards.
Freedom of Religion and Religious Tolerance
At the end of 2005, 335 religious communities were officially registered, including 28 non-Islamic ones, and 10 applications still were proceeded. There are 1,300 Mosques and other cult places, majority of them are not registered, and only 500 function regularly.
The State Committee on the Work with Religious Structures examined the books of 354 titles, and import and reprinting of 89 of them were prohibited because of propagation of religious hatred. In 2005, in Azerbaijan were imported about 500,000 books, in 30% less than in 2004.
In Holyday of "Ashura" February 20, the believers of Djuma Mosque were prevented from the annual blood donorship action in the Mosque which still is closed for the worshippers since 2004. This programme, so called "Asma al-Husna", is implemented since 1998.
On April 4, 2005, Mr. Ilgar Ibragimoglu, coordinator of the Centre for the Protection of Conscience and Religious Freedom (DEVAMM), Secretary General of the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA Azerbaijan) and Imam of the Djuma Mosque was prevented from leaving Azerbaijan in order to deliver a report on religious prosecution to the UNCHR.
On 30 June 2005, the police dispersed the believers of Djuma Mosque parish who came to the mosque in the first anniversary of its closure. Mr. I.Ibrahimoglu was detained by police but released in the same day after the pressure of human rights defenders.
On September 3, several dozens members of the Djuma Mosque's parish walked at the central streets of Baku with the badges "Solidarity with the Day of Hijab" (headscarf of the Moslem women). Despite that was no street rally or meeting, the policemen detained two men walking at the Fountains' Square. When I.Ibrahimoglu intervened, he also was detained by police of Yasamal district, but was released in a few hours under pressure of the group of human rights defenders, journalists and oppositionists gathered afront the police station.
On October 28, the Baku city Mayor rejected an application of the Djuma Mosque believers for the permission of street rally devoted to the Day of Quds (Jerusalem), with idea of struggling the violations of rights of the population of occupied territories, reconciliation of different cultures, support of UN resolutions on Palestine and Nagorno Karabakh. The parish was forced to refus from rally and to gather in the especially rented premise.
During the pre-election campaign, at least 8 religious activists were not registered or deprived their registration as alleged religious officials. Only one of them, a Chairman of Islamic Party of Azerbaijan H.Nuriyev successfully appealed to the Constitutional Court and restore his registration in the eve of the Parliamentary elections of November 6.
In December, 3,450 Moslem pilgrims visited holy places of Saudi Arabia.
Conscientious Objection to Military Service
Despite of missed deadline for adoption, the Government continued to ignore its obligation “to adopt, within two years of accession, a law on alternative service in compliance with European standards.”¹⁶
Only conscientious objector who brought a case against the Ministry of Defence referring to the Article 76 of Constitution, a Jehovah Witness M.B. emigrated from Azerbaijan after the negative decision of last court instance. Reportedly, he lodged application to the European Court of Human Rights.
At the territory of self-proclaimed “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” controlled by Armenia, two conscientious objectors were detained at the end 2005, Gaghik Mirzoyan (Evangelical Christian Baptist) ans Areg Avanesyan (Jehovah Witness). They were regularly visited by local human rights defenders of the Centre for Civilian Initiatives, and reportedly have no complaints for conditions of detention.
Freedom of Movement and Human Contacts
In general, Azerbaijan becomes more open for foreign visitors. In particular, in January-September, the country was visited by 1,348,655 foreigners, mainly tourists and employees of foreign companies. However, in connection to the unresolved armed conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, the Armenians are prevented from safe visits.
Some problems appeared because of Parliamentary elections of November 6. In August, the representatives of Ukrainian youth movement “Pora” which had been active in the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, visited Azerbaijan and meet the activists of local partner youth organizations. As result, on September 15, one of these visitors, Ukrainian citizen, Advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Sergey Yevtushenko as well as Estonian citizen Andrei Popov were prevented from entrance and forcibly deported.
On October 31, the Embassy of Azerbaijan to USA refused to provide visa for a President of the Institute of Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE) Mrs. Irena Lasota who observed elections in Azerbaijan since 1995. During the Presidential elections of October 2003, she led a group of 188 observers of OSCE who expressed a dissent opinion.
The renowned campaigner for religious freedom, Mr. Ilqar Ibrahimoglu was only prominent figure of post-election political detainees of 2003-2004 whose previous conviction (5-years suspended imprisonment) was not lifted in 2005. That prevented him from leaving of country 7 times in 2004-2005.
In June, the PACE renewed its request to the Azerbaijani Parliament “to pass without delay a law granting a general amnesty, as a measure of national reconciliation, to groups of persons involved in certain events. Such a measure is the only means of securing the release of presumed political prisoners and terminating the proceedings against those who have fled the country and who, as political exiles, now wish to return to Azerbaijan and are prevented from participating in the public life in their country.”¹⁷
Despite the amnesty was not announced, some middle-rank political emigrants voluntarily repatriated in Azerbaijan. Saday Nazarov, who was in search under accusations related to the attempt of coup d’etat in October 1994, returned from Czech Republic in January 10, was arrested, and then liberated after Prosecutor’s Office lifted accusations against him. Fakhraddin Abbasov who lead a “Parliament” of self-proclaimed “Talysh Mugan Autonomous Republic” (TMMR) in 1993 as well as Hilal Mammedov who lead a political Party of Equality of Peoples of Azerbaijan (AXBP) which initiated the idea of TMMR successfully returned in August. Some repatriates even participated in elections, but without the success.
However, the prominent exiled figures who can strengthen the opposition movement in Azerbaijan were rejected from return. In particular, two emigrated opposition leaders, Mrs. Ayaz Mutalibov and Rasul Quliyev were openly threatened by arrest. The latter one tried to come by charter flight from London on October 17, but then stopped in Ukraine where was arrested by National Bureau of Interpol, tried by court, liberated and got back in London, while police arrested dozens people who gathered to pick up him in Baku.

Rights of the Child
The international organizations claims that infant mortality rate in Azerbaijan is about 79.8 deaths/1,000 live births, taking into account first year of child’s life. However, the State Statistics Committee challenged the figure announcing that infant mortality rate is only 20.
In 2005, 56 NGOs established NGO Alliance on the rights of child. It prepared the alternative report on the rights of child which will be presented during the 41^st session of the UN Committee of Rights of Child in January 2006.
Despite of official prohibition of foreign adoption of Azerbaijani children, the allegations are continued. As for kidnapping, the Vice-Minister of Interior O.Zalov stated that in 2005, the criminal cases on 13 facts of selling of children were given to the courts, and investigation of 1 case continued. In this connection, 23 citizens of Azerbaijan were prosecuted.¹⁸
In January-September, the minors committed 171 offences including 3 murders. There were prosecuted 145 minor criminals including 5 girls. Two children were put in the special closed school for under-age offenders (age less than 14 years), 183 children are controlled by police. In November, 60 children were detained in only penitentiary institution for juvenile offenders.
According to the mentioned NGO Alliance, there are 800 to 3,000 unaccompanied and homeless children who deals with beggary and other street work. Every third of them becomes a victim of pedophiles. Police reported about 211 children were detained in the special receiving and distributing prison of police in January-September.
Property Rights
In 2005, the property rights of some prominent businessmen were challenged after the arrests in October of 3 ministers who reportedly committed attempt of coup d’etat and allegedly controlled a prominent sector of economy. Some of them were arrested; others deprived their property or stopped the work of enterprises, while the media openly claimed for political reason such harassment because of their close family, friendly, or business relations with arrested “conspirators.”
The corrupted courts still do not work in the restoration of violated rights for real estate. E.g., the MP Mikhail Zabelin stated in December that a problem of housing of Russian families illegally occupied since 1990s by Azeri refugees still is actual. In 2005, the Constitutional Court passed at least 21 decisions, and 18 of them related the various property issues. In all these cases, the decisions of Supreme Court were abolished.
According to the statistics, the violation of property rights also is a second cause of applications to the European Court against Azerbaijan. However, since 15 April 2002 there are no judgments yet. On September 1, the European Court of Human Rights admitted first case of Azerbaijani citizen v. Azerbaijan related the housing rights.¹⁹
National and Ethnic Minorities

In March, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) examined the 3^rd and 4^th periodical reports of Azerbaijan.²⁰ The Committee recommended to the government that it conduct studies with a view to effectively assessing and evaluating occurrence of racial discrimination, in particular against ethnic Armenians (in connection to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict). It noted that despite the legislative provisions providing for the right to effective protection and remedies, no cases invoking the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code concerning racial discrimination have been brought before the courts. It regretted the insufficiency of information on the participation of minorities in the elaboration of cultural and educational policies. It is also concerned at the lack of programmes to support minority languages, and that those languages are not used in the educational system to an extent commensurate to the proportion of the different ethnic communities.

In 2005, the Constitutional Court (CC) refused in several occasions to admit the individual communications did in Russian. It referred to the Article 35.1.4 of the Law “About Constitutional Court” demanding translation into Azeri language all the documents of file. To day, the CC is only court which violates constitutional guaranties of use of native language.
Until the end 2005, Azerbaijan did not implement its obligations before Council of Europe “to sign and ratify, within one year of its accession, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages” and “to adopt, within three years of its accession, a law on minorities which completes the provisions on non discrimination contained in the constitution and the penal code and replaces the presidential decree on national minorities”.²¹
Nationality and Citizenship
The elections of November 6 intensified a process of change of old “internal” passports to the national plastic ID cards. In 2005, more than 2,8 Mln. citizens were provided ID cards and more than 446,000 citizens got “foreign” passports (in 2004 year – 136,000). Since July 1, the old Soviet “internal passports” finally became invalid in Azerbaijan.
Equal Rights of Women and Men

Women constitute 51% of the total population of the country. Ratio of women to men is 1034 to 1000. According to official information, life expectancy in 2005 was 69.6 for men and 75.3 for women. 70.9 thousand marriages and 8.9 thousand divorces were registered. 141.7 thousand children were born, 17.1 children per 1000 people fell on. The reasons for infant death are diseases of respiratory organs; diseases appear in prenatal period as well as infectious and parasitic diseases.

The women were under-represented in political life. For example, ruling Party “Yeni Azerbaycan” (YAP) had 373,973 members including 157,397 women (42%). However, in the official list of 109 candidates for MP from YAP, only 16 were women (14.7%), and in YAP group in Parliament – 6 of 55 (10.9%). In general, in result of Parliamentary elections of November 6, only 15 of 115 members of Parliament (MP) are women. After refusal one of the opposition female MP from her mandate, the percentage of female MPs became 12.3%. In previous Parliament (2000-2005), women occupied 13 seats of 124 (10.5%). The results of by-election in May 2006 cannot change the situation significantly.
The legal framework for punishment of violent sexual crimes is enough strong. On September 30, the Parliament amended the Crime Code by the punishment of kidnapping of brides, even consensual one, by imprisonment up to 10 years as ordinary kidnapping. However, the violence against women, especially domestic violence remained latent. The victims prefer not to complain to the police because of fear of condemnation by society or publicity in media. As a result, the violent crimes against women are registered in most final stages. E.g., NGO “Clean World” reported basing at the official data that in 22 cases of rape registered by police in January-June, 10 women were killed including 2 pregnant ones, and 12 got injuries. In total, the law-enforcement agencies recorded in 2005 only about 40 cases of rape, i.e. approximately 1 case per week.
In April, the services in the state women’s health institutions officially became free-of-charge again. However, the corruption in the public health sector is wide-spread. That was one of main reasons of arrests and dismissals of number of public health officials in October-December.

Aggressive Nationalism, Racism, Xenophobia and Hate Speech
The continuing occupation of about 20% of territory by ethnic Armenians provokes the hatred against Armenians. Often, the real or false information about Armenian origin is used for political goals. For example, in pre-election period, in constituency #59 one candidate named other competitor as “having Armenian routes” and “woman with Armenian character”. After that a court considered as admissible a complaint about “insult of honour and dignity”.²²

On 4 and 7 March, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination considered the third and fourth periodic reports of Azerbaijan. In its concluding observations²³, the Committee expressed concern that, according to reports, incidents of racial discrimination against Armenians occur, and that a majority of the Armenians residing in Azerbaijan prefer to conceal their ethnic identity in order to avoid being discriminated against.

Last such incident was registered on December 24, when the criminal investigation was opened under Article 320 of Crime Code (forging ID) against 43-years Armenian women who changed her ethnicity for Azeri in 1994.²⁴ Interesting is that ethnicity is not mention at all in new ID cards.
The member of Parliament, Chairman of Russian Community of Azerbaijan, Mr. Mikhail Zabelin considered as one of vital problems of ethnic Russians, the continuing occupation of apartments of Russian citizens by Azeri refugees since 1990s²⁵.
Migrants, Asylum Seekers, Refugees and IDPs
Since late 1980s, the unresolved conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region still is a cause of continuing displacement of 650 thousands IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions and over 200 thousands of refugees from Armenia. Also, 50 to 70 thousands Meskhetian Turks also found asylum here awaiting for repatriation in Georgia.²⁶
Besides, the UNHRC Office in Baku registered about 12,000 asylumseekers, 85% of them are Chechens from Russia, the rest is Afghans (1,500), Iranians (200), Iraqis (100), etc. In January-September 2005, only 27 of them got mandatory status of refuges. The government traditionally keeps distance from the asylum procedures on politically sensitive cases, e.g. Russian Chechens or Turkish Kurds. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) concluded in March 2005 that “some asylum seekers are excluded by the refugee determination procedure of the State partysylum-seekers comprehensive law.” The Committee recommended that Azerbaijan “consider adopting subsidiary forms of protection guaranteeing the right to remain for persons who are not formally recognised as refugees but may still require protection, and to continue its cooperation with UNHCR. The Committee further recommends that the State party, when proceeding with the return of asylum-seekers to their countries, respect the principle of non-refoulement.” ²⁷
The courts decided in 2005 to extradite in Turkey 3 members of Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) after they served their sentences for illegal crossing of state border. One of them, the journalist woman Elif Pelit reportedly had a refugee status in Germany.
Trafficking in Human Beings
The report 2005 of the US Department of State noted that “Government of Azerbaijan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.”²⁸ The efforts were focused mainly at the legislative framework. So, in May 2005, the President approved the National Plan of Struggle against Trafficking. However, the government did not anti-trafficking amendments to the Criminal Code (new Articles 145-1, 145-2 and 145-3) despite the respective law was scheduled for adoption at the last, Autumn session of old Parliament.
As a sign of attention for the matter, the Ministry of Interior opened in January a ‘hotline’ on trafficking [phone]. However, the perpetrators generally enjoy impunity. So, in 2004, only 10 of 106 trafficking-related investigations resulted in convictions (20 convictions in 2003). Eight perpetrators received one-year prison sentences and two female offenders were reportedly released because they had children. In 2005, 159 cases of trafficking with 231 victims were registered and criminal actions were brought against 153 alleged perpetrators. No statistics about convictions are available.
Only rare victims preferred to use an assistance of international institutions. So, the International Organization of Migration (IOM) in 2005 assisted a repatriation of 5 Azerbaijani nationals from Turkey. Also, 5 citizens of Uzbekistan, 2 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, 1 citizen of Moldova were repatriated from Azerbaijan.

1 http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en.html

2 Turan News Agency, 15 April 2005.

3 Human Rights House Network. Newsletter 13/2005: http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=3775

4 PACE Doc. 10751. Ad hoc Committee to observe the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan (6 November 2005). 29 November 2005

5 PACE Doc. 10751.

6 CIS "Statement of the International Observers from CIS States on the Results of Election Preparation and Election Day Observation of the Elections to the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan Republic", 7 November 2005.

7 PACE Resolution 1456 (2005) on the Functioning of Democratic Institutions in Azerbaijan. 22 June 2005

8 Turan News Agency, 9 November 2005

9 PACE Resolution 1456 (2005). Functioning of democratic institutions in Azerbaijan. 22 June 2005.

10 Report from the OSCE Trial Monitoring Project 2003-2004.

11 PACE Resolution 1457 (2005). Follow-up to Resolution 1359 (2004) on political prisoners in Azerbaijan

12 PACE Opinion No. 222 (2000). Azerbaijan’s application for membership of the Council of Europe. 28 June 2000.

13 PACE Resolution 1457 (2005) and Recommendation 1711 (2005). Follow-up to Resolution 1359 (2004) on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. 22 June 2005.

14 PACE Resolution 1457 (2005). Follow-up to Resolution 1359 (2004) on political prisoners in Azerbaijan

15 At the end 2005, the trial still did not finish.

16 PACE Opinion No. 222 (2000). Azerbaijan’s application for membership of the Council of Europe. 26 June 2000.

17 Resolution 1457 (2005). Follow-up to Resolution 1359 (2004) on political prisoners in Azerbaijan. 22 June 2005

18 Regnum News Agency, 6 January 2006

19 Leyli Rahmanova vs. Azerbaijan (Application no.34640/02).

20 CERD/C/AZE/CO/4. Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.11 March 2005

21 Opinion No. 222 (2000). Azerbaijan’s application for membership of the Council of Europe. 28 June 2000.

22 Day.az, 1 November 2005.

23 CERD/C/AZE/CO/4. Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.11 March 2005

24 Day.Az, 30 December 2005

25 Day.Az, 22 December 2005

26 Resolution 1428 (2005). The situation of the deported Meskhetian population. 18 March 2005.

27 CERD/C/AZE/CO/4. Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.11 March 2005

28 US Department of State. Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report 2005.