Azerbaijan president signs pardon decree

Azerbaijan President Ilkham Aliyev signed a new pardon decree yesterday, December 29. This decree grants a pardon to 54 convicts, people whom human rights activists consider political prisoners being among them, including Sardar Gamidov, the former head of Azerbaijan's Tertersky district executive power and brother of ex-minister of foreign affairs Iskander Gamidov. This decree is the fifth pardon decree signed during Ilkham Aliyev's presidency. Altogether 972 people have been granted a pardon under these decrees, including the recent one.

However human rights activist Saida Godzhamanly holds that this decree does not solve the problem of political prisoners. "Unfortunately, we should fix the fact that the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan remains unsettled in spite of this act of granting a pardon. We're beginning the year 2005 with this problem, which will be Azerbaijan's "headache" in various international organizations one more time because we haven't honored the obligations undertaken to the Council of Europe in 2001. In the list of political prisoners submitted by the Federation of Human Rights Organizations to the Council of Europe there were many sick people, who must be released in view of the state of their health. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened," Ms Godzhamanly said.