The French Member of Parliament François Rochebloine raised the persecution and ill-treatment of Leyla Yunus at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on 24 June 2014 in the dialogue with President Ilham Aliyev. “The President’s answer showed he had exact knowledge of the case”, HRHF’s Head of Advocacy Florian Irminger said. HRHF was in Strasbourg with a delegation of Azerbaijani human rights defenders.
The following day, Leyla Yunus wrote an open letter to President Aliyev stating she now knew where the orders for the investigations against her came from. The day before her arrest, on Tuesday 29 July, Leyla Yunus wrote a new letter to President Aliyev, asking him what he is afraid to justify the arrest of so many activists and human rights defenders.
Leader of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, Leyla Yunus is a well-known Azerbaijani human rights defender. Her NGO is a member of the South Caucasus Network of Human Rights Defenders and has from the very start in 1995 worked on the issue to release political prisoners and to establish rule of law in Azerbaijan. Leyla Yunus has within several projects worked to establish dialogue between civil society actors in the South Caucasus.
Leyla Yunus is a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, as a tribute for her longstanding work promoting human rights. The French daily newspaper Le Monde called her “one of the last voices of dissidence in Azerbaijan.”
Arif Yunus is also a widely respected researcher and writer, including on issues related to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF)
