THOMAS HAMMERBERG : AZERBAIJAN IS EXPECTED TO BE A MODEL FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FOR THE REST OF THE MEMBER STATES OF THE UNITED NATIONS

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Aug 30 2007

France, Strasbourg / corr Trend A.Maharramli / Trend’s interview with
Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammerberg.

Question: You are scheduled to visit Baku from 3 to 8 September. What
are you going to discuss during your visit to Baku and what issues
are on the agenda?

Answer: This is a major mission that we do every five to six years
involving a country, in order to assess the overall situation when
it comes to human rights, so we are dealing with a number of issues
and the problems, of course. We will see the President and his
Ministers, the legal judges, the leading judges, the representatives
of non-government societies, and the media which is a part of a
program picture. We will also travel a bit outside of Baku in order
to gain better insight of the country’s conditions outside of the
capital city. We are going to visit prisons and other institutions
where human rights are an issue. This visit is to gain a whole and
overall picture. The results will be published in a report which we
will submit to the Committee of Ministers.

Question: How do you estimate the situation on human rights in
Azerbaijan compared to last year and how could the situation change
next year?

Answer: I see. Yes. I was there in May. Azerbaijan was the first
country I visited after I taking up this office. But that was a
short visit, I saw someone among the leading ministers and the
President and also I talked with the non-governmental institutions
and civil societies. But this was my first series of visits and it
was too short. And it will be very interesting for me to assess what
changes there have been since last year. I notice that the Azerbaijani
Government and parliamentarians adopted a national plan of actions for
implementation of human rights in December. So I will be interested
to see what steps have been taken in order to implement that. I also
notice that Azerbaijan is now a member of the United Nations Human
Rights Council, which of course means that as a member of that United
Nations body, Azerbaijan is expected to be a model for human rights
for the rest of the member states of the United Nations.

Question: During your visit to Azerbaijan you will present a report
on the observation of human rights in Azerbaijan, which will also be
presented to the CE Ministerial Committee. What milestones will you
highlight in this report?

Answer: It depends a bit on what I do see and what is said in the
talks that we had, but we will definitely talk about the situation
of the internally displaced persons and their situation after the
conflict with Armenia. We will definitely talk about the situation
with media and freedom of expression and freedom of journalism in the
country. This will be compared with our preliminary reports and our
programs in this field. We will look at the conditions in prisons. I
did actually visit prisons last time I was there in May last year. We
have some views about the standards of the detention conditions. We
will also discuss the functioning of the judicial system in courts
and what can be done in order to secure that the court system is fair
and protects the rights of people, and individuals. So there are a
number of issues that we are prepared to discuss. But I don’t want
to say anything about the conclusions before I hear the answers.

Question: Recently, over twenty Azerbaijani journalists have appealed
to western countries for political asylum. How do you view the
situation of the Azerbaijani media?

Answer: We have reports about these problems. Both when it comes to
treatment of individual journalists and also other arrangements. So
this will definitely be another key task to discuss. We believe that
freedom of media is a human right in itself. But also when the media
cannot operate freely that also harms the protection of other rights
within society.

Question: Indeed, your report will also deal with the court system
of Azerbaijan. In the past reforms have been carried out to improve
the court system in the country. What needs more attention in the
country’s legal system?

Answer: That we will discuss. This is a major issue. We believe that
an independent system of the courts is absolutely crucial for the
protection of the human rights and how judicial persons should not be
subject to any pressure, or economical and political circumstances
in the country, but should be respected as a fully independent. So
we will discuss this matter of course.

Question: Do you any plans to become familiar with the state of prisons
and isolation cells during your visit? Do you have any information
on the situation of prisons in Azerbaijan?

Answer: Well I have my own preliminary impression from my last visit in
May 2006. But we have also, within the Council of Europe, a Committee
for the Prevention of Torture, which sends out delegations to various
countries including Azerbaijan to observe the situation.

So I believe that we have the information already now. But we will
definitely want to look for ourselves to see if there have been
improvements or not.