The agenda of the PACE winter session includes the question "Case on communications in connection with political prisoners in Azerbaijan." The draft resolution, drawn up on the basis of the speaker on political prisoners in Azerbaijan, Icelandic MP Thorhildur Sunna Evarsdottir, will be discussed on January 27, reports Turan.

The report expressed serious concern about the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, which is "systemic in nature."

Even when Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe in 2001, PACE called on Baku to “release or review the cases of political prisoners”. However, this problem still remains, despite several PACE resolutions on this issue.

In recent years, the European Court of Human Rights has issued a large number of decisions, finding a violation of the European Convention due to arbitrary arrests of opposition politicians, civil society activists, human rights defenders and journalists.

The draft resolution states that 85 people were included in the report of the previous PACE rapporteur, Christoph Strasser. At least nine of these people won their cases in court, and 4 more remain pending before the ECHR.

“In any case, there is no doubt that the phenomenon of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is real,” said speaker Evarsdottir.

At the same time, she calls the lists of political prisoners trustworthy presented by the “Working Group on Compiling a Single List of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan” and “Union for the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan”.

The report specifically refers to the cases of the journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, leaders of the Muslim Unity Movement Taleh Bagirzadeh and Abbas Huseynov, defendants in the Cases of Said Dadashbeyli and others.