FAZIL MUSTAFA: "COUNCIL OF EUROPE SECRETARY GENERAL WAS NOT CORRECT TO SAY CONCRETE WORD ABOUT ANOTHER MOTIVATION OF CHARGES"

APA
Nov 16 2009
Azerbaijan

"One blogger is in jail in each of Germany, Croatia and Finland,
two – in the United Kingdom"

Chairman of Great System Party, MP Fazil Mustafa told APA.

– Fazil Bey, recently Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn
Jagland, as well as German and Norwegian embassies issued strong
statements against the Azerbaijani government regarding the court
decision about imprisonment of two young activists. How do you value
these statements?

– I advocate for approaching such issues not from political,
but legal aspect. I think any court decision can not satisfy the
parties for subjective and objective reasons and they can express
sensitive protests. But in any case, the most important issue in the
correction of any decision is to use legal opportunities till the
end. We witnessed that solution of problems not in legal aspects, but
under foreign political pressure caused undesirable results. I think
father of one of the young bloggers – honorable Hikmet Hajizadeh has
more polished position on this issue. He told journalists that they
are going to open next legal phase – appeal procedure.

We also can assist solution of the problem in this direction as members
of the parliament. My principal position is that it was not positive
case that the embassies or Council of Europe Secretary General issued
statements pressuring on Azerbaijan. It is not only question. They
can form a habit to interfere in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan
in the solution of other issues related to Armenians or others,
which can seriously damage our national interests. One blogger is
in jail in each of Germany, Croatia and Finland and two – in the
United Kingdom. How would accept the governments of those countries
if Azerbaijani embassies demanded protection of their rights or to
consider them as political prisoners. In any case, foreign embassies
have to give legal value to the court decision and not to underline
political motivation. It is confronting their diplomatic missions.

Early experience showed that political pressure of the embassies
lead to prolongation of term of imprisonment. But it would bring
more positive results if they investigate opportunities for their
releasing together with active position of country’s law-enforcement
organizations.

– Council of Europe Secretary General connected imprisonment of two
young activists with a satiric clip they released criticizing the
government. Does such statement have any legal base?

– I don’t know what clip is disputed there. But from the legal view,
the Secretary General should see the indictment even if formally. If
they quote some probabilities out of the indictment, they have to
show sources. The Council of Europe Secretary General can claim the
court decision, but it was not correct for him to say concrete word
about another motivation of the charges. As I know there were no such
claims or charges in the indictment.

– International organizations are frequently addressing the problem
of political prisoners in Azerbaijan and after the last trial,
German embassy condemned Azerbaijan in "creating two more political
prisoners". As a lawyer, what is your opinion about the notion of
"political prisoner"?

– The notion of "enemy of people" was so largely spread during
the Soviet time that the society called all persons jailed without
court decision or with other motivation "the enemies of people". Now
it could concern the notion of "political prisoner" and rebels or
domestic criminals are called so. I don’t support the cases where
"political prisoner" is used without coordination with law. Specially,
such statement by the European country, which urged for supremacy of
law, could be a question of disputes.

Azerbaijan is integrated into the mechanism of European Court and
charges out of this mechanism could be only probabilities, which have
no legal force. It is impossible to predict how the European Court,
or closer distance, the Appeal Court will react to the decision of fist
instance court. If some person is called "political prisoner", it can
be decided only by the European Court. In any case, it is determined
not by foreign embassies, but by the higher court instances. The
European Court didn’t use this phrase against any person so far. I
would like to emphasize that it would be better to pass legal trail
till the end, to unite efforts of human rights defenders and public
community instead of to direct the issue toward the political deadlock.