On August 2nd, another prominent human rights defender was arrested. Rasul Jafarov is the project coordinator for the ”
Art For Democracy Campaign
” which was launched in December of 2012. His trial is taking place today.
He is being charged with tax evasion and illegal entrepreneurship of the criminal code. It is likely he will be sentenced to pretrial detention.
Jafarov was questioned earlier on July 31st and his apartment was searched. After providing the police with requested documents, he shared the following message on Facebook: “Everything is in order. We have nothing to hide. Our accounts are transparent and clean, and have been reported. We constantly inform about our [Art For Democracy Campaign] activities and its covered by the media. We share all our projects and work through social networks and online. We only deal with rights protection work and we will continue this work!”
Jafarov was also one of the contributors to the list on political prisoners. In her Facebook message, a well known investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayil said, “no matter what the list will be announced [to the Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Mr. Argamunt]”.
One of the most recent works from Art For Democracy campaign was
this
video, titled “Dictator” the amazing short film.
