Leyla Yunus (1955) – imprisoned Azerbaijani social activist, leader of the Institute for Peace and Democracy during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She was the head of the Information and Analysis Department in the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence, in the rank of colonel. She left after Heydar Aliyev’s coup. In 1995, she set up the Institute for Peace and Democracy, which since 2003 has operated Women’s Crisis Centre for victims of family violence. The main areas of the institute’s operation are fight against human trafficking, struggle for the rights of the forcibly evicted, and activity in support of political prisoners independent of their political or religious affiliation. Author of numerous reports on political prisoners. For years she has been the focus of a media hatred campaign: accused of Armenian genes, and unbecoming behaviour while working for the Ministry of Defence. Recipient of the Teodor Haecker Award, she is Knight of the Legion of Honour of France, and has been shortlisted for Sakharov Prize (2014). On 28th April this year, she was detained together with her husband in Baku Airport, before a planned trip to a conference organised by the EED in Brussels. Without a court verdict or a prosecutor’s injunction, the couple’s passports were confiscated, rendering their departure from the country impossible, moreover, searches were made in the office of the Institute for Peace and Democracy and in the couple’s private home. Arrested together with her husband, Arif Yunus, she has been in prison without access to the essential medical aid and possibility of contacting the family. Her detention was condemned by the government of the United States and the leading world organisations supporting human rights.