Prof Dr Jürgen Stock, Secretary-General,
General Secretariat, INTERPOL,
200 Quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon, France
RE: Prevent misuse of INTERPOL in the case of Leyla and Arif Yunus
12 June 2017
We, the undersigned organisations call on INTERPOL, and all other relevant
bodies and authorities to act with due diligence in accordance with
INTERPOL’s constitution to prevent the misuse of INTERPOL alerts
against Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov, two prominent human rights
defenders from Azerbaijan. The couple currently resides in exile in the
Netherlands, where they were granted refugee status in 2016. Detailed
information about their human rights activism can be found below.
INTERPOL’s constitution, prohibits the misuse of its systems for
political purposes and in ways that violate human rights.

Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov were arrested on 30 July and on 5 August
2014 respectively. Azerbaijani authorities prosecuted both on politically
motivated charges of large-scale fraud, while also charging Leyla with bogus
forgery, tax evasion, and illegal entrepreneurship offences. In August 2015,
a court sentenced Leyla Yunusova to eight and half years
imprisonment, and Arif Yunusov to seven, having convicted them of tax
evasion and other economic crimes. Authorities also filed treason charges
against them both, but later suspended the investigation.
On 9 December 2015, Leyla Yunusova was released from detention and her
8.5-year prison sentence was converted into 5 year suspended sentence,
following a decision by the Baku City Court of Appeal on the basis of a
request from her lawyers with reference to her deteriorating health
condition. Similarly, Arif Yunusov’s prison term was changed to a
5-year suspended sentence. He was placed under house arrest on 12 November
2015.
[1]
In April 2016 the Azerbaijani government allowed the couple to travel abroad
to receive needed medical treatment for conditions they had developed during
their prison ordeal.
Due to the politically motivated nature of their prosecution, in spring
2016 the couple received political asylum in the Netherlands.
When Leyla and Arif left Azerbaijan, their cassation appeal was still
pending before the Supreme Court. On 27 December 2016, the Supreme Court
sent the case back for re-examination to the Baku Appeal Court. On 17
May 2017, at the hearing at the Baku Appeal Court, the Yunus’s lawyer
asked the court to ensure the couple’s participation in the
proceedings via Internet. The court rejected the petition. The same day, the
court ordered the couple to return to the country to participate in the
subsequent court hearings in their case. The court hearing was rescheduled
from 31 May to 3 July 2017.
The arrest of Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov happened against the
backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Azerbaijan.
Since 2014, several dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers and
journalists and opposition politicians have been arrested and prosecuted on
politically-motivated grounds. The arrests and other steps by the government
of Azerbaijan have served to severely close the space for independent
activism, critical journalism, and opposition political activity in the
country.
Azerbaijan has been ranking as
Not Free in the Freedom in the
World rankings of the Freedom House
[2] for several years, scoring the lowest on the
political rights and civil liberties. In the latest Freedom of the Press
rankings Azerbaijan scored the 162
nd place out of 180
countries.
[3]
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently concluded
an official visit to Azerbaijan. In a statement issued at the end of its
visit, the Working Group concluded that human rights defenders, journalists,
and political and religious leaders continue to be detained on criminal or
administrative charges in the country as a way to impair their exercise of
basic human rights and fundamental freedoms and to silence them. The Working
Group stressed that these practices constitute abuse of authority and
violate the principle of the rule of law that Azerbaijan has undertaken to
comply with. One of the cases highlighted by the Working Group is that of
Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov. In his recent report to the Human Rights
Council, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders,
Michel Forst also drew attention to the legal persecution of human rights
defenders in Azerbaijan.
[4]
An official request has been made to INTERPOL on 12 June 2017 by the
European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), which represents the couple,
to inquire about the existence of any alerts made against Leyla and Arif
Yunus by the Azerbaijani Government and to request INTERPOL to take all
appropriate steps to prevent the dissemination of such an alert. Taking into
consideration the very poor human rights record in Azerbaijan and the
routine practice of politically-motivated prosecutions by the authorities,
any attempt by the Azerbaijani authorities to use INTERPOL alerts against
Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov would violate the prohibition in
INTERPOL’s constitution against the misuse of its systems for
political purposes and in ways that violate human rights. INTERPOL should
therefore refuse any request from the Azerbaijani authorities to use the
INTERPOL Information System against Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov, and we
call on all relevant national bodies and authorities not to act on INTERPOL
alerts against them, in case they are issued.
Short biographies:
Leyla Yunusova is a long time human rights defender and
activist since the late Soviet era. She is the director of the Institute for
Peace and Democracy, a human rights organization in Azerbaijan that focused
on political prisoners, women’s rights and other issues. For almost 30
years Leyla Yunusova and Arif Yunusov have been involved in compiling
comprehensive lists of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. Leyla Yunusova is
a Knight of the French Legion of Honor, winner of the International Theodor
Hacker award, Laureate of the Polish Sergio Vieira de Mello Award and a
finalist of the 2014 Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament.
Arif Yunusov is a prominent Azerbaijani historian and
human rights activist. He is the chairperson of the Conflict and Migration
departments at the Institute for Peace and Democracy. Throughout his career
Arif has published over 30 books and several articles on the history of
Azerbaijan and on Azerbaijani-Armenian relations. In his work he has
promoted dialogue between intellectuals from Azerbaijan and Armenia, and for
many years has advocated for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in
Nagorno Karabakh. He has supported numerous victims of torture and spoken
out repeatedly against politically motivated detentions.
The list of signatory organisations:
1.
Amnesty International
2.
Association UMDPL (Ukraine)
3.
Bir Duino
4.
Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights
5.
Committee Against Torture
6.
Crude Accountability
7.
Fair Trials
8.
OMCT and FIDH under the "Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights
Defenders”
9.
Freedom Files
10. Front Line
Defenders
11. Helsinki
Foundation for Human Rights
12. Human Rights
House Foundation
13. Human Rights
Watch
14. Index on
Censorship
15. International
Partnership for Human Rights
16. Institute for
Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS)
17. Kazakhstan
International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law
18. KRF Public
Alternative
19. Legal Policy
Research Centre
20. Public
Verdict
21. Regional Center
for Strategic Studies
22. The Barys
Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House
23. The Georgian
Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims
24. The Netherlands
Helsinki Committee
25. Women of the
Don
[4]
“Human rights defenders call for action on Azerbaijan”, 10 March
2017, http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/22297.html.