Coordinator of the Information Center for Azerbaijani Captives and Hostages, human rights defender Ahmad Shahidov, who was attending the Spring Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) held in Strasbourg, France on 8-12 April, was officially warned.
The human rights defender told about it on his Facebook page. According to Ahmad Shahidov, on April 11 when he just entered the PACE building he was kept for one hour and then taken to PACE secretariat. The PACE secretariat stated that the Azerbaijani human rights defender hindered Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s speech in January 2018 and thus violated the internal procedural rules. After this incident Armenian delegation to PACE raised question about the Azerbaijani human rights defender: “Today, during the speech of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the plenary session of PACE, they did not let me to enter the plenary session hall and said that the Armenian delegation to PACE complained about me. The Security Service took me to the PACE secretariat and I was officially warned. They said that if once again such a case will be repeated, my visit to any European institutions will be forbidden.
I regard it as a double standard against myself and my country and strongly condemn it…”