Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center issued an annual fact-sheet on the situation of civil and political rights in Azerbaijan in 2022
During the year, EMDS carried out monitoring of violations of civil and political rights based on a total of 229 cases. Violations of rights such as the right to a fair trial and trial, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression prevailed among these cases.
EMDS regretfully reports that the problems recorded in the field of human rights protection in the Republic of Azerbaijan in previous years were also observed in 2022. In 2022, as in previous years, citizens were subjected to threats and pressure for their critical speeches, peaceful demonstrations were regularly prevented, and persecution of critics of the government continued.
EMDS believes that in order to improve the situation on the protection of civil and political rights, as well as to eliminate the current political crisis in the field of human rights protection, the state bodies should demonstrate political will regarding the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and implement the recommendations of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on ensuring the independence of the judicial system in Azerbaijan.
EMDS calls upon the political authorities to implement the provisions arising from the relevant decisions of the ECtHR regarding the protection of citizens’ freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and amend the laws ‘On Media’, ‘On NGOs’ and ‘On Political Parties’ based on the recommendations and standards of the Council of Europe and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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