Having paid so much attention to Azerbaijan in the past years [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/azerbaijan/] it would be almost unfair not to mention that the Supreme Court in Baku today released Azerbaijan’s leading human rights lawyer, Intigam Aliyev. The court converted his seven-and-a-half year prison sentence to a five-year suspended term.
Intigam Aliyev, before his arrest in Baku, Azerbaijan, August 2014. © 2014 Aziz Karimov
[Aliyev, an award winning human rights lawyer is also chair of the Legal Education Society, which litigated human rights cases in Azerbaijan. He was one of the first Azerbaijani lawyers to bring cases to the European Court of Human Rights and has mentored a new generation of human rights lawyers in the country. In April 2015, Baku’s Grave Crimes Court convicted Aliyev on politically motivated charges of tax evasion, illegal business activities, embezzlement, and abuse of authority.]
Earlier this month, President Ilam Aliyev (what is in a name!) pardoned a number of journalists and human rights defenders. However, other activists are still unjustly behind bars (such as Ilgar Mammadov, and Khadijah Ismayilova). See: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/azerbaijan-pardon-jafarov-ismayilova-aliyev/. Is the enormous amount of pressure by human rights groups finally paying off?
Source: Dispatches: Top Rights Lawyer Freed in Azerbaijan | Human Rights Watch
April 8, 2016 at 14:32
[…] Human rights defender Intigam Aliyev freed in Azerbaijan today! […]