Comments on Azerbaijani President's decree of pardon

EU Special Representative on South Caucasus Peter Semnebi said he is happy with the decision of the President to release a number of reporters and political prisoners.

"Unfortunately, I do not know exactly who is on the list, but such a decision is a quite positive step.

Semneby noted that imprisonment of reporters as well as existence of political prisoners in Azerbaijan had always been a concern of the European Union and the organization is happy with pardoning. He also expressed wish that the remaining reporters are also released.

Andres Herkel, co-rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee was also positive on the decree. "This is a positive action. However, pardon does not imply annulling of a court decision. These people will have previous convictions. The list of pardoned does not include many people, we have mentioned before. For example, Eynulla Fatullayev, Mirza Sakit and Rasim Alekperov.

Another co-rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Azerbaijan Yevgeniya Zhivkova said she is also happy about the decree and congratulated Azerbaijani people on such a good event on the threshold of the New Year

"I am happy that these people will be able to celebrate the New Year of 2008 with their families", she noted and voiced hope about the further continuation of such positive steps.

Urgunarf Dotir, speaker of the office of the OSCE Bureau for Democracy and Human Rights announced that the organization, she represents, supports the decision of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to release political prisoners and reporters.

She considers that people must be put in jail for criminal actions, rather than for their views and statements.

The bureau hopes for the further steps in this direction.

/APA/