Case History: Hilal Mamedov

On 17 March 2016, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, issued a presidential pardon for 148 prisoners, among them human rights defenders Anar Mamadli, Rasul Jafarov and Hilal Mamadov. The same morning, the Baku Court of Appeals converted the six year prison sentence of journalist Rauf Mirkadyrov to a five year suspended sentence, thus effectively releasing him from custody.

Anar Mammadli is chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS), an organisation that has been carrying out independent election monitoring in Azerbaijan since 2001. On 26 May 2014 he had been found guiltyof conducting illegal business, abuse of office and tax evasion. On 26 August 2015, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan upheld the sentence of five and a half years in prison against him.

Rasul Jafarov is the Head of the Human Rights Club, an organisation established in December 2010 to protect human rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan. He organised the 'Art for Democracy' and 'Sing for Democracy' campaigns in the context of the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in 2012 to draw international attention to the government’s crackdown on civil society. On 16 February 2016, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan dismissed in the final instance the appeal submitted by human rights defender Mr Rasul Jafarov against the ruling on his conviction for illegal entrepreneurship, abuse of authority, forgery and embezzlement.

Hilal Mamedov is a human rights defender and a consultant with the Institute for Democracy and Peace and editor in chief of Tolishi Sado (Talysh Voice), the only newspaper in the Talysh minority language. Hilal Mamedov was sentenced to five years imprisonment on 27 September 2013 on charges of selling drugs, high treason including espionage for Iran, and incitement to national, racial, social and religious hatred and hostility. He has repeatedly denied the charges, and international observers, including Front Line Defenders, remarked that the trial was marred by many violations of fair trial standards.

Front Line Defenders welcomes the releases and calls on the Azeri authorities to release human rights defenders Khadija Ismayilova and Intigam Aliyev who remain in prison in retaliation for their peaceful and legitimate human rights work.

On 21 January 2014, the Baku Court of Appeal rejected an appeal on behalf of human rights defender Mr Hilal Mamedov.

During the appeal, representatives for Hilal Mamedov argued that that the Ministry of the Interior and the office of the Prosecutor General had violated the presumption of innocence by presenting him as a person who had committed a crime in their statement of 4 July 2013, before the court had found him guilty. However, neither representatives from the Ministry of the Interior nor the office of the Prosecutor General were present at the hearing. The court dismissed the petition and upheld the original verdict.

Hilal Mamedov was sentenced to five years imprisonment on 27 September 2013 on fabricated charges of selling drugs, high treason including espionage for Iran and incitement to national, racial, social and religious hatred and hostility. International observers, including Front Line Defenders, remarked that the trial was marred by many violations of fair trial standards.

On 10 April 2013, a new hearing on the case of human rights defender Mr Hilal Mamedov took place in the Baku Court of Serious Crimes. The hearing is part of the ongoing trial of the human rights defender which is happening behind closed doors, following the rejection of the human rights defender's request to have a public trial by Judge Azer Orujev.

Hilal Mamedov was arrested on 21 June 2012 on charges of treason, the manufacture of drugs and incitement to racism and xenophobia. He faces up to 15 years in prison. According to the prosecution, the human rights defender was allegedly recruited by the Iranian security services in order to undermine the sovereignty of Azerbaijan. Moreover, the investigators claim that the articles published by Hilal Mamedov in his newspaper Tolishi Sado contained "thoughts aimed at excitation of inter-ethic enmity". The human rights defender and his defence deny all accusations.

At a previous trial hearing, on 13 March 2013, Hilal Mamedov requested that the witness for the prosecution, Mr Elman Guliyev, be questioned a second time. The request was allowed by Judge Azer Orujev but the witness did not appear at the hearing to which he was summoned on 27 March 2013.

He instead appeared on 3 April and testified that the human rights defender had told him, in 2006, that he was going to use money earned from selling drugs to establish an autonomous region for the Talysh people, an ethnic minority in Azerbaijan. Mr Guliyev claimed that there were two other witnesses to that conversation but the witnesses denied the claims. Mr Guliyev was also asked why he did not report this information in 2006; but he did not clearly answer this question.