Azeri rights campaigners condemn imprisonment of anti-Armenian protesters

Turan news agency
30 Aug 04

BAKU

The chairwoman of the society to protect women’s rights, Novella
Cafaroglu, has condemned the court ruling sentencing six members of
the Karabakh Liberation Organization (KLO).

“I can’t understand the judge who has handed down such a sentence,”
she said.

According to her, the convicted were not fighting for power, they were
fighting for Karabakh and for the integrity of their motherland. The
arrest and imprisonment of such people is an insult to the whole
Azerbaijani people. They must be freed and this has to be demanded by
the entire Azerbaijani people,” Cafaroglu said.

“Today’s sentence is directed not only against people, it is directed
against Karabakh. It symbolizes our approval of the aggression against
Azerbaijani lands,” says the director of the human rights bureau,
Saida Qocamanli. What is going on shows that it is impossible to
ensure the protection of human rights in Azerbaijan.

“Someone who has handed down such a sentence will have to answer
before the tribunal of conscience for the rest of his life,” the
rights champion said.

The director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, Leyla Yunus,
believes that today’s ruling is a demonstration of the fact that the
authorities have no inkling of how to liberate the occupied
territories. The sentence has become yet another proof of how absurd
[Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev’s patriotic statements are.