Human rights activist Saadat Bananyarli: "The whole world watches the fate of the journalists, arrested in Azerbaijan, and demands their release"

She noted that if human rights organizations, holding the monitoring of the pre-election situation, do not feel the approaching day of voting, the ordinary residents completely stay aside of this process.

"If we expect the elections to be democratic, naturally, creation of a democratic pre-election situation is an important component of this process. It has been repeatedly stated that unfortunately most political rights, including the freedom of speech and assembly are not observed. We do not understand how we can include into the report the fact that no sanctioned meeting or any other street action has been held since 2005 in Azerbaijan", said Bananyarli.

She noted that this is a violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens.

At the same time, she noted that on the one hand, allocation of AZN 2,000,000 for assistance to Azerbaijani mass medias is discussed but on the other hand several media representatives are arrested.

"The whole world watches the fate of the arrested journalists and demands their release. It is not logical that a person, who stabbed journalist Agil Halil by an official version, is sentenced to 1.5 years in prison, while head of the newspaper is sentenced to the term, which is twice as higher as the first one, by the unfounded accusations of a woman, who had been wanted by the police", noted Bananyarli.

/Day.Az/