Azerbaijani lawyer: number of political prisoners is increased in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan was called to make some reforms on human rights defense sphere and it also gave some promises on the eve of “Eurovision 2012” song-contest which will be held in Baku. But despite of the all expectations the situation in Azerbaijan gets worse. Head of the Peace and democracy institute Leyla Yunus told about this, Azerbaijani “Turan” news agency writes.

According to her the authorities attack civilian activists and journalists and as a result of the pressure the number of the political prisoners has been increased.

Member of the Musafat party Elshan Hasanov has been released recently but at the same time vice chairman of the Islamic party Arif Haniyev, editor-in-chief of islamazeri.az news agency Ramin Bayramov and lawyer from Nakhichevan Zeynal Baghrizade have been arrested.

During 20 years many people have been arrested in Azerbaijan who were accused in trying to make a state revolution. But if they were military officials on the middle of 1990s now they are citizens and mainly they are young activists. And such accusations are presented every 3-5 years (2000, 2005, 2007, 2011).

According to Yunus, these people are sometimes arrested with funny accusations. According to Peace and development institute there are 62 political prisoners in Azerbaijan now.