Prisoners' pardoning in Azerbaijan disappoints rights defenders

Today, Ilham Aliev, President of Azerbaijan, has signed a decree to pardon 634 convicts; however, it touched only 12 persons from the list of political prisoners; many of them were near their release time without pardoning, rights defenders assert.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that by May 18, the pardoning commission had examined 1100 appeals and prepared, for the Azerbaijani President, an amnesty list dated to May 28, the Republic Day.

According to the decree "On pardoning a Number of Convicts on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Azerbaijani People's Republic", 607 out of 634 inmates are released from jails today, on the date of signing, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has reported.

According to Bashir Suleimanly, a member of the civil society working group on drawing up a unified list of political prisoners, the pardoning has again failed to solve the problem of political prisoners.

"Our list, published this March, contained 142 persons; and only 12 of them have been pardoned. They are mostly believers, who are not major political and public figures; and have served almost their entire terms," Mr Suleimanly told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.