Baku,--Top Azerbaijani activist Leyla Yunus, who is being held in jail on treason charges, has lost 16 kilos over the past six months and her health is irreversibly deteriorating, her lawyer said on Wednesday.
"Doctors say that Leyla Yunus is suffering from liver necrosis," lawyer Elchin Gambarov told AFP.
"She has lost over 16 kilograms (35 pounds) since her arrest," he said, citing doctors.
Foreign and local doctors, who examined Yunus in December and January, "believe the symptoms confirm irreversible medical processes," he added.
Doctor Christian Witt of the Berlin-based Charite hospital, who examined Yunus last month, declined to comment.
Accused of spying for arch-enemy Armenia, Yunus, 59, and her husband Arif were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention last summer.
The activist's lawyer said in September that she had been beaten in a pre-trial detention centre.
Azerbaijan's justice ministry denied the claim.
Yunus heads one of the ex-Soviet republic's leading rights groups, the Institute for Peace and Democracy, in the capital Baku.
She has won several international prizes for her work, and has collaborated with Armenian activists advocating the reconciliation of the two countries, which have been locked in a decades-long conflict over the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.
Dissent in Azerbaijan is often met with a tough government response.
Rights groups say the government has stepped up pressure on opponents since President Ilham Aliyev's election for a third term in 2013.
Western governments and human rights groups have expressed concern about Yunus's prosecution.
AFP
