Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center issued a statement dating 1 September which reflects on the cases of politically motivated pressure and persecutions targeting government critics, civil society representatives, human rights defenders and journalists.
According to the statement, in just the 8 months of 2022, at least in 20 cases, socio-political activists, civil society representatives, bloggers, human rights defenders and journalists faced various politically motivated persecutions executed by law-enforcement bodies including detention, arbitrary arrests and intimidation.
EMDS also condemned the indifferent and unprofessional approach of the investigative authorities in several abovementioned cases and highlighted that the absence of objective investigations into facts of human rights violations, omissions in the prevention of attacks targeting journalists, activists and civil society representatives reflect the uncompromising political stance of the government toward its critics.
The organization called out Azerbaijani Government alongside European Union and the Council of Europe for urgent actions.
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