Azerbaijan’s political prisoners

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A country that ranks as 126th out of 175 for transparency, scoring just

29 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (clean).

Azerbaijan are the hosts of this year’s inaugural European Games

Eight journalists, five human rights defenders, and dozens of other political prisoners have been convicted on trumped-up charges.

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Anar Mammadli, chairman of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre.

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Leyla Yunus,director of Institute of Peace and Democracy

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Emin Huseynov, director of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety

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Currently trapped at the Swiss Embassy in Baku unable to leave for fear of unjust arrest along with the others.

Rasul Jafarovwas arrested in August 2014 after announcing the launch of the Sport for Rights campaign

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Khadija Ismayilova (recently awarded PEN American Centre’s Freedom To Write Award)

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Back in 2009, a Baku-based US diplomat described Azerbaijan as a ‘mafia’ state. In a secret cable to Washington later posted to Wikileaks, he compared the Aliyev family regime to the Corleone family in the Godfather films. In great detail the unnamed US diplomat described President Ilham Aliyev as “Michael (Corleone) on the outside, Sonny on the inside.”

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@SportForRights

facebook.com/sport4rights

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