Christoph Strässer took a biased and hostile position on our country, after he was given mandate of the rapporteur on Azerbaijan, attempted to politicize the issue and began to accuse the Azerbaijani government of grave crimes. It means that Strässer chose confrontation and conflict, and not cooperation and didn’t conduct any research under his mandate. It was his major mistake, which caused his political fiasco in Europe,” said member of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, MP Elkhan Suleymanov in his interview with APA.
Suleymanov said that ex-prisoners, prisoners, who are not considered political prisoners by independent experts appointed by the PACE Secretary General in 2001, terrorists, those accused of using force to replace secular state-building in Azerbaijan by religious state and the people, who committed other grave crimes, were introduced by Strässer as political prisoners in his report submitted for discussion: “Of course, the Council of Europe doesn’t consist of only Strässer and a group of people supporting him, this organization is a place for commonsensible, unbiased public and political figures. In their speeches at the PACE plenary meeting prior to the voting, the majority of parliamentarians said Strässer’s report is one-sided, biased and unreal. The report was not adopted, became an insignificant and ordinary writing. I think the fact that Christoph Strässer’s report was not adopted, should be regarded as the confirmation of respect at the Council of Europe for democratic values, rule of law, principles of inadmissibility of discrimination against all member states, including Azerbaijan. Rejection of the report proved to some forces inside and outside the country that exerting influence on Azerbaijan through various means of political pressure is desperate. He who digs a pit will fall into it,” he said…
/Apa/
