E bull enmay doc

Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan (HRCA)Visits Inmates 

Condemned to Life in Prison

 

Eldar Zeynalov 

Director, HRCA

 

 

As part of the Human Right's Center's prison monitoring program, on April 28, Eldar Zeynalov and HRCA volunteer 

Vagif Tagirov visited two divisions of the Gobustan Prison. The Gobustan Prison is the only maximum security prison 

in Azerbaijan, where inmates are kept in locked cells, rather than in barracks.   HRCA representatives took a look at 

---

the living spaces as well as the kitchen areas.  HRCA is currently focusing on the daily social conditions experienced 

by such prisoners.  HRCA visited twelve prisoners as part of this project, and interviewed six of them, who had been 

sentenced to death, between 1993-1997, these sentences were later converted to life in prison when capital 

punishment was made illegal in Azerbaijan.  HRCA has been carrying out monitoring in prisons since 1995.  Since 

1996, the organization has had access to a women's penal colony, as well as to the majority of correctional 

facilities/work colonies in the country.  Since 1997, HRCA has visited the Gobustan Prison several times.