Azernews.Az

The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution "strongly" condemning the recent killing of Azerbaijani writer and journalist Rafig Tagi.

It expressed disappointment with the alleged failure of the Azerbaijani authorities to publicly condemn the murder and "ensure public awareness of the investigation of the circumstances surrounding his death".

The EP called on the authorities to carry out a thorough, prompt and effective investigation into the death of Tagi.

The EP welcomed the move of the Azerbaijani government to set up a special working group to investigate the attack on Tagi and urged it "to use all resources to bring the criminals who committed this terrible crime to trial".

Tagi, a critic of Iran and political Islam, died at age 61 in a Baku hospital on November 23 four days after a brutal knife attack on him.

Tagi published an article in the newspaper Sanat in November 2006 entitled "Europe and Us" in which he argued that Islamic values were preventing Azerbaijan's integration into European institutions and stunting its democratic progress. Believers labeled Tagi’s story as an insult of Islamic values, while Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, who has since died, issued a fatwa calling for Tagi to be killed. Lankarani’s son, Ayatollah Mohammad Javad Lankarani, hailed Tagi’s killing in a recent statement.

The publication of the article was quickly followed by protests in the Azerbaijani village of Nardaran, in which demonstrators reportedly made death threats against Rafig Tagi and the newspaper’s editor Samir Sadaqatoglu.

In 2007, a district court in Baku sentenced Tagi to three years in jail over the article. He was granted a presidential pardon later that year.

Tagi said shortly before his death that the attack on him might have been linked to an article he published in November 2011 on the website of Radio Liberty's Azerbaijan Service titled "Iran and the Inevitability of Globalization." In the article, he sharply criticized the Iranian government and ridiculed Tehran's threats against Azerbaijan. Tagi said Iranian spies could have been behind the attack.

Investigators have neither confirmed nor dismissed this assumption yet.

The EP resolution reminded that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for freedom of opinion and expression, including criticism of religions and belief. It called on the Azerbaijani authorities to "refrain from using the articles of the criminal law to stifle free debate on religion".

The resolution further urged the Iranian authorities to remove the concept of "deserving of death" from the revised Penal Code currently under discussion in Iran’s parliament. The EP is "gravely concerned" that the existence of fatwas calling for the killing of an individual could be used as a defense in Iranian court by individuals accused of murder, on the basis that the victim "deserved to die". It urges the Iranian authorities to ensure that anyone suspected of inciting, planning or committing murder, whether the killing takes place in Iran or elsewhere, is brought to justice in a trial which fully meets international standards.

The EP also called on the Iranian government to provide all necessary cooperation to the Azerbaijani authorities during the investigation of Tagi’s murder.

It called on the Azerbaijani authorities to show its "genuine commitment" to human rights and comply with its obligations under international law, in particular the protection of the right to life and to freedom of expression.

The EP also expressed its concern at the alleged prisoners of conscience still jailed in the country and called on the Azerbaijani authorities to release them ahead of Azerbaijan's mandate as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2012-2013.