Yesterday, December 10, Baku Court of Appeal rejected appeals of Bashir Suleymanli, Anar Mammadli and Elnur Mammadov keeping them in jail.
The three men were arrested last year December, two months following the contested presidential elections.
Anar Mammadli, the head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS) together with Bashir Suleymanli, the Executive Director, were charged with tax evasion, illegal business activities, and abuse of their monitoring organization to falsify election results.
Baku Court of Grave Crimes sentenced Mammadli to 5 years and 6 months, Suleymanli to 3 years and 6 months and Mammadov, the head of the Volunteers for International Cooperation Public Union to 3 years and 6 months on probation.
Mammadli is the winner of this year's prestigious Vaclav Havel Human Righs Prize. Amnesty International declared Mammadli Prisoner of Conscience.
International rights watchdogs describe the arrests politically motivated.