The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, together with other 55 prominent human rights and civil society organizations, has jointly signed an appeal to conduct a thorough and fair investigation on the corruption claims, related to the work of PACE on Azerbaijan, the Forum said in a released statement on Friday.

According to the source, the concern mainly stems from a recent report European Stability Initiative (ESI) issued in December 2016, denouncing the bribes offered by representatives of the Azerbaijani government to several PACE members in order to influence their work.

Recently, the PACE Secretary General Wojciech Sawicki presented to the Assembly Bureau a draft proposal suggesting possible ways to conduct an external and independent investigation. This, however, was not favourably welcomed and no agreement was reached on its implementation.
Also, according to the press office of the PACE, the Assembly President Pedro Agramunt commented that the Sawicki report was not admissible in the suggested draft, while denying the contribution of civil society organisations in the process.

The inappropriate conduct of PACE members had already been pointed out during the January PACE session by Mehman Huseynov – the chairman of Azerbaijani NGO the Institute for Reporters Freedom and Safety -, who is now facing serious consequences for speaking up about corruption among PACE members.

For the above-mentioned reasons, the group of civil society organisations calls for a fair, accurate and independent investigation on such matters. More specifically, the appeal is directed to the PACE Bureau, requesting a plenary debate of the Sawicki proposal at the next PACE session (24th-28th April) and a system of civil society supervision, to ensure impartiality.

The statement also urges all members of the Assembly to support an appropriate investigation and therefore to sign the Declaration on the Parliamentary Assembly Integrity introduced in January 2017, as well as the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to make a very strong statement against corruption in the Parliamentary Assembly and, more broadly, in the Council of Europe.

The Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) is calling upon the Turkish government to immediately commence a fair and transparent investigation of the murder of prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer Tahir Elci, Asbarez reports.
Despite the fact that almost two weeks have passed since Mr Elci was shot and killed during a gun battle between Turkish police and unidentified gunmen, the Turkish authorities have not taken any steps to investigate this murder. The ANCC joins with calls from Kurdish politicians and international human rights organizations to ask that Turkey immediately investigate the killing and to stop covering up the facts of what occurred.

Mr Elci was a defender of the rights of Kurds living in Turkey and was under constant threat of criminal prosecution by the Turkish government for defending Kurds and others accused of being terrorists. Mr Elci was on his way home from a news conference calling for the end to the resumed violence between Kurds and the Turkish government when he was killed.

For Armenians, the assassination of Mr Elci reminds us of the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian intellectual Hrant Dink who was gunned down in front of his office in January 2007. Mr Dink’s murder was never properly investigated and members of Turkish law enforcement treated Mr. Dink’s murderer as a hero. To this day the involvement of ultranationalist elements of Turkey’s military and civil service in Mr Dink’s murder is not fully known.

Dr Girair Basmadjian, President of ANCC stated: “Tahir Elci’s murder cannot be allowed to become the subject of a cover up like Hrant Dink’s assassination. Anything less than a full investigation and prosecution of the responsible parties is a travesty of justice and calls into question Turkey’s respect for the rule of law.”

Dr Basmadjian added: “Despite eight years having passed since Dink was assassinated, we still don’t know the full responsibility of the Turkish deep state for this crime. The international community cannot allow for Tahir Elci’s murder to remain unsolved for that long.”

The ANCC is the largest and the most influential Canadian-Armenian grassroots human rights organization. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout Canada and affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCC actively advances the concerns of the Canadian-Armenian community on a broad range of issues

PACE and Azerbaijan: 56 NGOs appeal to investigate corruption allegations against MPs

ANCC Canada calls on Turkey to investigate Kurdish lawyer’s assassination