Azerbaijan’s human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the fourth time in November of 2023.
From the point of view of advocacy, this UN mechanism is an important platform to raise awareness about human rights violations against the LGBTIQ+ community in Azerbaijan and call for action and meaningful commitment to recognize, protect, and promote fundamental rights and freedoms of our community.
As was in 2018, Nafas will be actively engaging with the 4th UPR cycle of Azerbaijan. Here are the strategic priorities Nafas. Advocacy Paper presented below are the strategic priorities, highlighting several areas of concern regarding Azerbaijan’s compliance with its international human rights obligations, in relation to violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer (LGBTIQ) community, including bias-motivated speeches and crimes, as well as threats and attacks against LGBTIQ human rights defenders and activists, with respect to rights to non-discrimination, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and privacy.