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Deutsch: Einspruch von Azeri Bloggern vom Höchstgericht abgewiesen

The Azerbaijani Supreme Court took a disturbing decision on 19 August 2010 rejecting the appeal by bloggers and activists Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade thus upholding the previous decisions taken by the lower courts in 2009 that convicted the two bloggers under false accusations of hooliganism.

The two bloggers were arrested on 8 July 2009 after having appealed to the police as victims of an assault in a restaurant and, on 11 November 2009, Baku's Sabail district court sentenced them to 2 and 2,5 years of imprisonment respectively, on charge of hooliganism. Several NGOs, media, freedom activists, political institutions, OSCE Representatives for Freedom of the Media, the Council of Europe High Commissioner for Human Rights and foreign diplomats including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have criticised the sentence expressing the conviction that the bloggers had been jailed for political reasons. The two young men were well known activists having expressed critical opinions to the Azeri Government.

"Milli and Hajizade are clearly in prison for exercising their right to freedom of expression", stated Article 19 Executive Director Agnès Callamard who considered that the decision only demonstrated "the lack of independence of the Azerbaijani judiciary".

Article 19 calls on the Azerbaijani government to release Milli and Hajizade from prison as well as other people imprisoned for political reasons and to cease the imprisonment of persons for expressing critical opinions to the Government.

Milli and Hajizade's lawyers said they would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Azerbaijan: Supreme Upholds Bloggers' Convictions (20.08.2010)
http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/08/20/azerbaijan-supreme-c...

Azerbaijan Supreme Court rejects bloggers' appeal: lawyer (20.08.2010)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jzFVNQDkDjNEzrkPR9c...

Azerbaijani bloggers still jailed (23.08.2010)
http://www.panorama.am/en/law/2010/08/19/az-bloggers/

EDRi-gram: Azeri bloggers abusively sentenced by the Baku court (18.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.22/azeri-bloggers-convicted-abuse