Asian Ombudsmen Associations held its XXI Meeting of Board of Directors successfully in Baku

Asian Ombudsmen Associations (AOA) held its XXI Meeting of Board of Directors in Baku on 30 October 2018.

The Federal Ombudsman of Pakistan Mr. Syed Tahir Shahbaz and Executive Secretary Mr. Abdul Khaliq, as well as other members of the AOA Board of Directors from other countries, including Japan, China, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Hong Kong- independent statutory authority of China, and ombudsman of Tatarstan Republic (Russia) and their staff in general, 19 foreign guests, stat bodies and mass media outlets took part in this meeting.  

In the opening ceremony, Ombudsman of Azerbaijan took the floor and gave brief information about the history of statehood in Azerbaijan in 1918 and 1991 years, its institutional structures, internal and external administration systems, human rights situation and current actions taken towards protection and promotion of human rights and freedoms, multiculturalism policy, VI Baku International Humanitarian Forum and Baku Forum dedicated to sustainable development held also in the frame of the noted international forum, Baku Principles set for nationalization of SDGs, “Integration, Acceleration and Policy Support” (MAPS).

At the meeting the AOA President, Pakistan Federal Ombudsman Mr. Shahbaz in his opening ceremony underlined the importance of effective multilateral cooperation, its priorities, main goals have been sounded.  

Later the participants heard the AOA Final Report for 2017, current and global issues; as well as discussed the questions related to increasing the number of AOA members, innovative human rights developments and activity directions for the forthcoming years.  

Second Session of the meeting covered two topics, including Goal 10 “Reduce inequality within and among countries” and effective exchange of views for future bilateral cooperation according to initiatives of the Azerbaijan and China ombudspersons.

During the meeting it was noted that the Azerbaijani Government submitted its first voluntary report with respect to SDGs in 2017 and is going to submit its relevant second voluntary report in 2019, which is still in the process. Also, Elmira Suleymanova highlighted the significance of consideration of interlinked SDGs while implementing them into practice, for example, Goal 5 ‘gender equality” is closely linked to the Goal 1 “No Poverty” and 4 “Quality Education” and with other goals.

E. Suleymanova stated that during her moderatorship at the VI Baku International Humanitarian Forum Session, dedicated to the Goal 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions” she gave broad information about the grave atrocities of the Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia-Azerbaijan) armed conflict such as inequality, discrimination, ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis, occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories by Armenian armed forces, refugee and IDPs flows resulted at gross violation of human rights and stated that it has been already over 15 States as well as 22 US States have recognized the Khojaly genocide occurred during this conflict.   

The XXI Meeting of AOA Board of Directors was continued in the atmosphere of effective discussions, exchange of views and opinions, setting proposals and recommendations.

The Azerbaijani Ombudsman stated that this meeting would facilitate to the strengthening and expansion of future cooperation within AOA members, developing and implementing common Action Plan based on nationalized SDGs and to establishment of the Platform accordingly to the Baku Principles good practices.

Finally, In the course of the meeting, the participants familiarized with number of legal publications and visited “Yanar Dag” (Burning Mountain) State Historical, Cultural and Natural Reserve.

After the meeting the Federal Ombudsman of Pakistan and his Executive Secretary were received by the chairwoman of the Parliament and chair of the Human Rights Committee Ms. Bahar Muradova. Ombudsman and member of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament Mr. Elman Nasirov also participated in this meeting.

This should be noted that the Commissioner of Azerbaijan is a member of this Association since 2013 and in November of 2015 she was elected vice-president of the for the next forthcoming four years.