The landslide winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, Sweden’s Loreen, has thwarted Azerbaijan’s attempts to use the competition to whitewash its record on free speech.

Prior to the competition, the Euphoria singer had met Azerbaijani activists, and was quoted as saying: “Human rights are violated in Azerbaijan every day. One should not be silent about such things.”

On the night of the Eurovision final, there was huge support for Index’s petition on Azerbaijan with tweets from Stephen Fry, Graham Linehan, Owen Jones and Caitlin Moran and political support from Lord Ken MacDonald QC, Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir and MEPs Edward McMillan-Scott, Richard Howitt, Nessa Childers and David Martin.

The petition is just short of 4000 signatures – if you haven’t signed it – please sign now: Azerbaijanpetition.org