Statement of the Republican Alternative Movement on the Executive Secretary, Mr. Natig Jafarli’s arrest

Republican Alternative Movement (REAL), strongly condemns the arrest of Mr. Natig Jafarli, the Executive Secretary, and confidently believes that this arrest is an order of the President of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev. 
We also declare that, Mr. Natig Jafarli’s detention came into force not only to prevent him from fulfilling his duties as an Executive Secretary of REAL, but also to stop him as a public leader from exposing truth regarding the government's poor economic policy which is facilitating a fast dooming economic failure. This step is an attempt to paralyze REAL’s plans for the transformation of it from movement to political party.
As REAL, we hereby declare that accusations against Mr. Natig Jafarli are totally baseless and contains political motives. Therefore, all charges on Mr. Jafarli should be dropped immediately and unconditionally. We also declare that, Mr. Jafarli’s arrest will by no means prevent REAL from the implementation of its activities on state referendum taking place on September 26, 2016 as well as any other relevant political activity regarding the unification as a party.  
It is worth to mention that, Mr. Natig Jafarli is a Secretary of Organizational Committee of Alternative Republicans Party responsible for organizational matters as well as authorized representative of Referendum Initiative Group.
REAL declares that Mr. Natig Jafarli’s arrest explicitly demonstrates the continuation of long standing state aggregated political repressions. Thus, his arrest puts long prioritized US and European Union countries’ commitment to human rights and democratic values on trial. In a given situation, their true commitment can only be proved by imposing sanctions on state officials  silencing democracy and breaching universal human rights.

The Board of Republican Alternative Movement (REAL) 
Baku
August 13, 2016