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U.S. human rights activists, who had worked in Baku in early July, have recorded that the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is growing and their punishment is tightening of too, writes the Azerbaijani news portal "Haqqin.az" referring to the Azerbaijani service of "Radio Liberty".

Mission was headed by the executive director of Freedom Now Maran Turner and Director of the Geneva office of Human Rights Foundation Florian Irminger. They had met the human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and family members of the Azerbaijani political prisoners.

"The government openly goes against the human rights defenders, journalists and young activists. Our mission is aimed at drawing attention to political prisoners and to give an adequate response to the authorities who assure that "there are no political prisoners," stated Florian Irminger.

In its turn Maran Turner stated that his organization is working with political prisoners around the world, and does not focus on single geographic region.

"But there are countries that are resorting to arrests in order to stifle discontent. Our organization pays special attention to such countries. Unfortunately, arbitrary arrest and prisoners of conscience remain a major challenge in the field of human rights in Azerbaijan. Our organization has worked over Azerbaijan before as well, but now we see that it is necessary to widen the sphere of works carried out in your country," he said.

Maran Turner attributed dramatic deterioration of human rights situation in the last two years to "Arab spring".

"Many governments are concerned with the growing number of protests. These protests have inspired opposition leaders of many countries. If we look at the list of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, we will see there names of people whom the government is afraid of. These are bloggers, journalists and political activists. The emergence of new political prisoners is also connected with this fear," said Maran Terner.

Azerbaijani Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD) published a list of political prisoners in the country. Thus, as of May 21, 2014 there are 130 victims of political repression in Azerbaijan: 41 prisoners of conscience and 89 political prisoners.