Leyla Yunus

Director, Institute for Peace and Democracy

The Netherlands/Azerbaijan

Leyla Yunus is the Director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy and the founder of Women Crisis Center in Azerbaijan. Ms. Yunus has published extensively on regional security, state-building, democratization, and human rights in the Caucasus. Her work in the sphere of Human Rights began in Azerbaijan during the Soviet period as Ms. Yunus was a member of the illegal movement “National Minorities Against Bolshevist Regime”. On May 2013 Ms. Yunus received the prestigious honor of the International Theodor-Haecker-Prize and became a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. Ms. Yunus created a list with the names of all the post 1995 political prisoners in Azerbaijan and was incarcerated from the 30th of July, 2014 until the 9th of December, 2015. In April 2016 Ms. Yunus emigrated to and currently resides in the Netherlands.