Human Rights Expert Examines Prison Reform in Azerbaijan
Q & A with Eldar Zeynalov: 2/28/01

Eldar Zeynalov has been at the forefront of human rights advocacy in Azerbaijan since 1993, when he founded the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan. The Center has been monitoring a wide range of pressing issues in Azerbaijan: penal reform, political prisoners, freedom of speech and assembly, women's rights, elections, and refugees. In addition to his work at the Center, Zeynalov is a consultant for the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a Moscow-based network monitoring violations of press freedom in the former Soviet Union. EurasiaNet spoke with Zeynalov about penal reform and Azerbaijan's new membership in the Council of Europe. The text of the interview follows.

Eurasianet: One of the major ostensible advances in the human rights situation in Azerbaijan over the course of the past year has been that the government finally granted the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the country’s prisons. As an advocate for prisoners’ rights, what are your thoughts on this development?

Zeynalov: At last, the International Committee of the Red Cross got the agreement signed on June 9 of last year to have the opportunity to visit all the prisons and have confidential interviews with all the prisoners. And just since June of last year they have been visiting the prisoners, beginning with the most closed institutions. A lot of prisoners were visited by them. The International Committee of the Red Cross is very careful about its definitions and never uses the term "political prisoner." The synonym for this category of prisoner is "people detained in connection to internal conflicts;" this is acceptable for both the Red Cross and our government. And the results of such visitations are confidential reports presented to the prison administration, government, etc. So, we have no visible results of such visits, but potentially it can be a very important part of penal reform.

Eurasianet: Last year, the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Sir Nigel Rodley, conducted an investigation into allegations of torture in Azerbaijan. Can you tell us if you know of any updates?

Zeynalov: Well, I can tell you that until now Nigel Rodley hasn’t issued that report about the visit in March of 2000. So there cannot be a response of government that results in a clear statement of the problem.

EurasiaNet: Do you know when the report will be issued?

Zeynalov: Maybe in some months. But almost one year has gone by since the time of this visit. I know that Nigel Rodley meets a lot of people; and when we had the meeting it seemed it was the first meeting with a non-governmental organization - he began with our organization. We had a fair discussion of the problems, and after that Nigel Rodley visited some prisons and some prisoners and political prisoners and saw torture and so on, and I have information that the UN finally was interested in intervening in the situation of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners.

But from my perspective, UN institutions and other inter-governmental organizations satisfy themselves with some steps taken by my government. For example, there were several instructions and decrees issued by our president about torture, such as prohibition of amnesty for or pardoning of the people responsible for torture.

But as a human rights defender, I can say that, just one month after the recommendation not to amnesty the torturers in 1999, the amnesty was in some articles concerning the torture. On the other hand, we have now new court articles regarding torture. It is very strange for me, but maybe it is a necessity. I cannot judge if it’s a necessity to have one specific article of court concerning torture or maybe several articles are more useful. We have now an article named as "Torture," a second one called "Using Torture," and a third one -- "Torture and Insult of Military Serviceman." So the legal framework is prepared, but as always the main problem is not the legal framework. It is the enforcement of the law.

Because in fact the crime of torture was prohibited in the Soviet period. Getting some, for example, witnesses from detained people by illegal means - including torture, of course – was prohibited in the Soviet period. The main problem is that these torturers are, in fact, protected by high-ranking officers. For example, nobody was punished from the torturers of so-called Guradzil (as heard) – Baku city police office. Yet all of the names [of the policemen] are known, the methods of torture are known, and hundreds of prisoners could be witnesses at the trial, if it would only begin. But nobody would deal with that. Moreover, last year the president stated that while he is president of the Azerbaijani republic, the Minister of the Interior would take this position. This suggests some correlation of the crimes the Minister, as Minister, is responsible for.

EurasiaNet: Since Azerbaijan became a full member of the Council of Europe, it will now enjoy the opportunity to bring cases before the European Court for Human Rights. Please tell us what you feel the potential impact of this could be for Azerbaijan.

Zeynalov: A lot of things have begun since the membership in the Council of Europe. For example, just at the moment the Red Cross finally got access to prisons, our non-governmental organization lost its access. It is my impression that membership itself is not a solution of other problems.

On the other hand, of course there will be the opportunity to bring cases against the government in the European Court, after which the respective legislation will be ratified by Azerbaijan. However, it is necessary to exhaust domestic remedies before applying to the European Court, but it is sometimes a problem even to bring a case before a lower court. A judge can simply refuse to accept some appeals. And how it is possible to get over these obstacles is the question.

It is also a very expensive process. Nowadays, a lot of prisoners have no access to a fair trial or even to basic advocacy because they have no money for self-defense. How is it possible for them to deal with the expensive procedure of application to the European Court? And finally, there is the six-month rule. Nobody will deal with an application to the Court if the last decision on the case in Azerbaijan is older than six months. A lot of the legal claims of opposition or political prisoners or some other people date from 1994, 1995, 1996, and so on. It is impossible to deal with such old cases through the European Court for Human Rights.

Generally, the people who are complaining about the membership of Azerbaijan in the Council of Europe have a misunderstanding of the situation with the European Court. Just recently, a leading newspaper describing discussions in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe published a photograph under the heading "European Parliament," instead of the Parliamentary Assembly. Or somebody from the leading politicians can say that Azerbaijan has better success than Turkey, because Turkey is not yet a member of the European Union. They think that the European Union and the Council of Europe are the same institution. And so on -- general illiteracy. I think that a lot of people who would try to apply to the European Court of Human rights would experience failure.

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Posted February 28, 2001 © Eurasianet
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