E/CN.4/2001/66 page 28 Procurator’s Office. He confessed to the murder. On 24 August 1998, the Baku Municipal Court found him guilty and sentenced him to 14 years’ imprisonment. An examination of the facts failed to establish that he had been beaten up. 95. Concerning Vakhid Gurbanov, Vagif Guliev and Elchin Mamedov, the Government replied that on 12 September 1998, a group of 250 to 300 persons, including the above-named, attempted to hold an authorized meeting in Azadlig Square in Baku. Participants in the procession to the square disrupted the peace and quiet of the town’s inhabitants. They were thereby deliberately provoking police officers, obliging them to use force against them. The participants threw stones, bottles, pieces of metal and sticks at police officers, as a result of which 78 were injured. The lawbreakers were arrested, some were warned and immediately released, others were fined by the court or held in custody for 2 to 15 days. The majority of persons charged were questioned by the Procurator General and his staff. Steps were taken to determine the motives of their crime and whether unlawful force had been used against them during or after the arrest. Those charged were informed of their right to appeal to the Procurator General. They were subsequently summoned to the Procurator’s Office and on being questioned stated that, as the injuries they had suffered during the confrontation between participants and police officers were insignificant, they had not appealed to the investigating authorities. On 30 December 1998, Vakhid Gurbanov was given a suspended sentence of two years. On 18 March 1999, a Baku District Court sentenced Elchin Mamedov to two years’ imprisonment to be served in two years’ time and Vagif Guliev to a suspended sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment. 96. Concerning Dzhamal Gumbatov, the Government stated that allegations of torture were checked on several occasions but not confirmed. 97. Concerning Kerim Kerimov, the Government replied that an investigation by the Gyandzh Procurator’s Office established that members of the Gyandzh section of the National Front Party of Azerbaijan had tried, on the pretext of holding a funeral ceremony, to hold a meeting which was not authorized by the municipal authorities. Kerim Kerimov and others were questioned at the police station in Gyandzh. After a warning not to engage in unlawful activities of that nature in future, they were released. The allegations that he was beaten by members of the Gyandzh police department on 24 May 1997 proved to be unfounded. 98. The Government stated that any human rights violation brought to the attention of the authorities becomes the subject of careful inquiries and that in each case steps are taken to restore the citizen’s rights and to ensure that justice is done. The protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is proclaimed in the Constitution as the principal objective of the State. A Police Law prohibiting the use of threats, torture and other physical and psychological pressure (article 5) and requiring police officers to respect the rights and freedoms of individuals in the course of their activities entered into force in November 1999 and was being widely distributed amongst the population and the police. 99. Concerning the journalists Smira Mamigdze, Ilhame Mamigdze, Zamina Aliguze and others, the Government responded that an investigation by the Procurator’s Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan had found that an unauthorized picket had been held in front of the