BAKU: Interpol Not to Extradite Yunus Couple on Demand from Baku

Turan Information Agency, Azerbaijani Opposition
 Tuesday


Interpol Not to Extradite Yunus Couple on Demand from Baku



Baku / 06/13/17 / Turan: Following a letter from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and on behalf of lawyers from the
European Human Rights Advocacy Center addressed to the Secretary
General of Interpol, Prof Dr Jürgen Stock, Secretary-General, INTERPOL
received a joint appeal of 26 international human rights organizations
entitled: "Prevent the misuse of Interpol in case of prominent
Azerbaijani human rights defenders".

The link of this appeal in English is: 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__iphronline.org&d=DwIFaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=LVw5zH6C4LHpVQcGEdVcrQ&m=zi4PQSy9Dajv9cp5HDFaFYuvvwMTYCE2Jz6D385l3nY&s=QOoQBtsn7GOBupurhzD1AYYTr_pToPNiseDinjq6Gc4&e=
 
/joint-ngo-appeal-prevent-misuse-inter, the historian Arif Yunus said.

The Interpol response has already been received, which says that the
Azerbaijani authorities' request to arrest Arif and Leila Yunus and
forced deportation to Azerbaijan will be rejected.

"Thus, the question of our compulsory extradition with the help of
Interpol is closed, but we are not going to end our struggle on
this.Amongless that, the authorities of Azerbaijan raised an important
topic: the need to reform Interpol to prevent the use of this
international institution in the struggle of dictatorial and
authoritarian regimes with dissidents. After all, these regimes in
many countries in the post-Soviet space and in other regions of the
world have long been trying to use Interpol to arrest and deport
dissidents from their countries. We raised this issue to prevent the
use of Interpol in the dirty intentions of the dictators," A. Yunus
said on the Facebook page.

In May, the Baku Court of Appeal ruled that the human rights activists
and former political prisoners Leila and Arif Yunus that had to leave
the country and are currently living in the Netherlands should be
forcibly brought to the court.

* Recall that Leila and Arif Yunus were arrested in 2014, and
convicted on a far-fetched charge of spying for Armenia in 2015. They
spent about a year and a half in prison. They were released on parole,
but the charges were not quashed. Later they were allowed to go abroad
for treatment. -0-