Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, has slammed Azerbaijan over large-scale prosecution of most prominent human rights defenders and civil activists.

In his comment on the activity of human rights organizations, Muižnieks notes that in the summer of 2014 the Azerbaijani authorities began a wide-ranging crackdown against the most prominent human rights defenders and civil activists, many of whom were criminally prosecuted on trumped-up charges and sentenced to prison. The human rights defenders concerned were openly labeled as “traitors” and “foreign agents”.

Although several activists were released in 2016, others are still in prison, many criminal cases still remaining open. In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concluded that the actual purpose of the criminal prosecution of Rasul Jafarov – head of the “Human Rights Club” NGO – was to silence and punish him for his activities in the sphere of human rights.

“Despite recent initiatives aimed at simplifying grant registration, the procedures for receipt and use of grants - as well as reporting obligations for NGOs - remain so cumbersome that most independent advocacy NGOs have either scaled down, discontinued their work or moved operations abroad. The extremely restrictive legislative environment, combined with a broad government crackdown on critical voices, has made Azerbaijan a very difficult country in which to do human rights work,” the comment reads.