“We are not for a PACE special co-rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan,” said Novella Jafaroglu, a member of Monitoring Group of Human Rights Organizations that participated in the spring session of PACE.
She stated this during a press conference conducted today (23 April) on the results of her trip. According to APA, human rights defenders met with the co-rapporteurs on Azerbaijan Andreas Herkel and Yevgeniya Jivkova, Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammerberg, the Secretary of the Venice Commission Janni Bukikkio, and members of “AGO” group. According to N. Jafaroglu, she talked during the event and participated in discussions about the situation of speech freedom and the imprisoned journalists. Human rights defender Saida Gojamanli talked about the decision adopted by PACE on Armenia and said that this is a message to Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan should take steps toward the resolution of existing problems by the June session. If ill prisoners and imprisoned journalists are not released by that date, the issue to appoint a special co-rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan might be discussed,” she said. She added that during meetings discussions took place about “Azadlig” newspaper journalist Agil Khalil.