Members of the European Parliament Ulrike Lunacek and Werner Schulz addressed Azerbaijani president, speaker and foreign minister, calling to stop suppression of freedoms in Azerbaijan.

“We are following with great concern the recent political developments in Azerbaijan, in particular as regards to arrests of political opposition leaders, the disruption of a training session of a domestic election observation organization and the newly amended Law on Grants and the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations,” MEPs said in a letter.

They are pointing at the detention of the civil society activists during training on citizensґ participation in public policy in Khachmaz region.

“Besides these concrete cases we received further worrying news on bans on the freedom of assembly, huge fines for organizers or participants of public gatherings, mass arrests, preventing NGOs from organizing events in both, regions and Baku, threats against representatives of opposition and independent media aiming on a prohibition to report about problems of society.”

Members of the European Parliament called on the leadership “to show the necessary political will to carry out progressive reforms in the areas of freedom of expression and assembly, which are very important with respect to the forthcoming elections. We urge you as Head of the Euronest Delegation of Azerbaijan to negotiate with the government the immediate release of Ilgar Mammadov and Tofig Yagublu, as well as the other jailed journalists and political prisoners and to ensure that further harassments will not take place.”