; Whereas a coalition of Azerbaijani nongovernmental human rights organizations in August 2017 documented 158 political prisoners in Azerbaijan; Whereas opposition leader and former Presidential candidate Ilgar Mammadov has been detained since February 2013 and remains in jail serving a 7-year prison sentence in contravention of a European Court of Human Rights decision calling for his release and determining the charges against him were intended to silence or punish [him] for criticizing the Government ; Whereas credible reports indicate that Azerbaijani authorities tortured, humiliated, and threatened 2 Azerbaijani youth activists into confessing to serious drug charges after they vandalized a public statue in May 2016 and were subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison on the fabricated drug charges; Whereas the Government of Azerbaijan since March 2017 has blocked the websites of Meydan TV, the Azadliq newspaper, Turan TV, and the United States-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Azeri service, effectively stifling the country’s only remaining major sources of independent news following years of Government efforts to harass, coopt, and shutter independent media sources in print, radio, and TV; Whereas, as of September 1, 2017, approximately 10 journalists are in jail in Azerbaijan, the RFE/RL Baku Bureau remains closed by government order since 2014, and RFE/RL correspondent Khadija Ismayilova remains subject to a travel ban following her arrest, conviction, imprisonment, and release in 2016; Whereas independent Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli was abducted from Tbilisi, Georgia, on May 29, 2017, beaten, transported against his will into Azerbaijan, charged by Azerbaijani authorities with illegal border crossing and smuggling, and as of September 1, 2017, remains in pre-trial detention in Baku while those responsible for his kidnapping are unidentified and face no consequences