Azerbaijan obstructs international human rights institutions from within

With the European Games underway in Baku, Katrin Kinzelbach spoke to German parliamentarians about the Council of Europe’s failure to address Azerbaijan’s human rights situation. On June 18, at a roundtable organized by MP Frank Schwabe and the European Platform for Democratic Elections, Kinzelbach said that authoritarian states purposefully obstruct international monitoring. This has been visible in not only the Council of Europe, but also the United Nations, where Azerbaijan sits on a committee controlling NGO access to UN human rights bodies.