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She also recalled that for the European Union, cooperation with Azerbaijan mainly occurs in the context of the Eastern Partnership. The Eastern Partnership Summit held in Riga in May adopted a declaration by which the Eastern Partnership countries recommitted themselves to strengthen democracy, rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms underlying every individual’s dignity and respect. At the summit, the European leaders looked forward to the first ever European Games to be hosted in Azerbaijan.
“The participation of representatives from the EU Member States in European Games in Baku is a window of opportunity for expressing their position on human rights issues and calling on Azerbaijani’s Government to ensure fundamental rights. The participants of the Eastern Partnership Summit noted that people-to-people contacts are the best way to impart European values and conviction to strengthen democracy, human rights and good governance,” Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica stressed.
The Olympic Charter is quite clear on the respect of fundamental rights, and, as part of the EU Work Plan for Sport, a group of experts was established which is developing standards on good governance in sport, standards that should be observed by all national and international sports organisations that are staging major sports events.
The Baku 2015 European Games are scheduled to take place from 12 to 28 June 2015 and are organised by the European Olympic Committee.
The European Court of Human Rights has on a number of occasions found violations of human rights in Azerbaijan, including the right to a fair trial and restrictions on freedom of speech expression and freedom of assembly. It has been pointed out in the reports of several international organisations that there are more than 100 political prisoners in the country, and a number of human rights defenders have been arrested in Azerbaijan in 2014.
