Amnesty International has put up a petition addressed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, appealing for the release of Jabbar Savalan, the young pro-democracy activist who was charged with drug possession and convicted in May. As noted on this blog earlier, Savalan was arrested “after calling for protest actions on Facebook and attending a youth conference in the city of Sumgayit. He was taken to a police station where police searched him and allegedly found a small amount of marijuana in his jacket pocket.”
The arrest and conviction have been widely interpreted as punishment for his political activities. The Amnesty International petition can be found here.