Report on political prisoners should not only concern Azerbaijan, but also Council of Europe member states-Fuad Alasgarov

The problem of political prisoners has been widely debated in the media lately. These debates came after PACE Rapporteur Christoph Straesser postponed his visit to Azerbaijan and a detailed interview with him was published in one of the newspapers. Views on this matter vary a lot. What are your comments on what is happening?

First and foremost, it is worthy of note that the reports claiming that Rapporteur Straesser was denied a visit to Azerbaijan are not true. The rapporteur was not officially denied a visa. He was going to visit our country on 4 November. But it was reported on 28 October that the rapporteur was postponing his visit, as he could not get consent from the Azerbaijani side. Let’s admit that the absence of a response, although there was some time till the planned visit, and the official denial of a visa are quite different things.

An interview with Mr Strasser was published on those days, on 28-29 October. The interview contained remarks that are not only surprising, but also absolutely incompatible with the status of a rapporteur and contradict PACE decisions.

And what decision do you mean?

On 5 October this year, the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights decided to change the name of the future report on this issue. Initially the report was entitled "Identifying political prisoners/Continued consideration of the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan". Now it will be called "Revisiting the issue of political prisoners". Accordingly, the report should not only concern Azerbaijan, but also the situation in the Council of Europe member states as a whole.

Azerbaijan has reiterated many times that the Council of Europe should not discriminate and apply double standards in its work and must adhere strictly to its own principles. The issue of political prisoners must be raised with regard to any country where similar cases are assumed to exist, or it must not be raised at all.

We have consistently advocated that position for many years. In this regard, I believe that the PACE decision to rename the report to cover other countries as well is a triumph of common sense and a manifestation of a more objective attitude to the problem.

However, despite the PACE Committee decision, Mr Straesser said in his interview that the future report will deal with Azerbaijan only. Moreover, he, without viewing any material, said that the report would not be positive for our country. Such statements raise serious doubts as to the unbiased and impartial attitude of the rapporteur towards Azerbaijan.

In his interview, the rapporteur said that Azerbaijan is not the only country about which the issue of political prisoners has been raised. He recalled that the notion of "political prisoners" and criteria for its definition were applied to Armenia, too.

If we refer to the history of the issue, we will see that in 2001 experts appointed by the Council of Europe secretary general really considered two cases in relation to Armenia. In both situations, the cases considered were not recognized as concerning political prisoners. PACE has never gone back to the issue of political prisoners in Armenia, though it seemed that events in Armenia have repeatedly given grounds for this. PACE has not adopted any document on political prisoners in Armenia since 2001.

The same refers to criteria. They were adopted exclusively for the consideration of cases of alleged political prisoners in Armenia and Azerbaijan. As I have already noted, with the exception of the two cases in 2001, they have never been applied to Armenia though Azerbaijan has repeatedly raised the issue of cases which demand consideration in Armenia. No other member-state of the Council of Europe has ever agreed to have these criteria applied to them. Thus Azerbaijan is practically the only country to which these criteria have been applied throughout the years.

All the same, it is quite obvious that if the report on political prisoners refers to any Council of Europe member, all countries have to show their attitude to existing criteria via the Parliamentary Assembly, agree on their application or work out new criteria common to all.

Given the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly committee on changing the name of the report on political prisoners, how do you see the updated mandate of the rapporteur?

I suppose that after the Assembly voices its opinion about possible criteria, a rapporteur must view the situation in all countries where PACE assumes the presence of political prisoners. I think that the report must cover at least the whole South Caucasus. By the way this is not only my opinion but also that of a number of local and foreign human rights activists. In 2010 the Human Rights House in Tbilisi, on behalf of a number of international NGOs, published an open letter to PACE Chairman Mevlut Cavusoglu, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland, Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, European Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso and European Parliament Chairman Jerzy Buzek.

The letter read that at that moment there were about 60 political prisoners in Georgia. The NGO urged the Council of Europe to send a group of independent experts to Georgia and also to send a PACE rapporteur on political prisoners to all three countries in the South Caucasus by the end of 2010.

Going back to the statements Straesser made in his interview, he said inter alia that by means of its lobbyists Azerbaijan is trying to bribe the PACE Committee on Legal Issues and Human Rights and other people. What can you say about it?

I have already said that during his interview rapporteur Straesser repeatedly demonstrated his bias toward our country. However, his statement is not merely a demonstration of partiality. He claims that an action which is considered a criminal deed in legislation of all countries and international agreements has been committed.

Anyone who makes such statements must either provide strong arguments or face the implications of their unfounded judgments.