23 October 2003, 14:34
OSCE Chairman-in-Office met with activists of human rights organizations of Azerbaijan
While being on a one-day visit to Baku yesterday, OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jaap de Hoop Scheffer met with activists of human rights organizations of Azerbaijan.
Director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy Leyla Yunus told a press conference, the activists informed the guest about numerous violations in the course of the election campaign and the voting of October 15 itself.
Leyla Yunus said she gave the OSCE Chairman-in-Office information on 12 missing during these events, two of whom were found later. She also said that the number of demonstrators severely beaten by police came to 25 people, two of them being paralyzed. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also received information that detainees who are being kept at the Interior Ministry's Department for Struggle against Organized Crime were subjected to torture.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in his turn, said he was very upset to hear of all these things. He announced he would meet with Interior Minister Vilayat Guliyev and Ilkham Aliyev and state all these facts to them.
"Unfortunately, to declare new elections in Azerbaijan is not in our power," said the Chairman-in-Office.
