Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of reports of arrests of people who are (a) perceived or (b) identify as LGBT in Azerbaijan.

We are deeply concerned about recent reports of some members of the LGBT community in Azerbaijan being arrested and detained by the authorities. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials have raised these specific reports with the Azerbaijan Government and have received assurances that all those arrested have now been released. We monitor the human rights situation in Azerbaijan closely and we regularly press the government to meet their international human rights obligations.