Amsterdam – Last year Ell and Nikki from Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest with their love song Running Scared. Following Eurovision tradition, that the winner gets to host the following festival, this year’s contest will be held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. According to activist and singer-songwriter Cirttan (Azer Mamedov) who is truly running scared and had to flee to the Netherlands for safety reasons, it will have a strong effect on the Azerbaijani authorities if the European countries would boycott this musical event. He says that for sure Azerbaijan will be a very good host. It will want to show the world all of its modernity and prosperity. What we won’t get to see, according to Cirttan, are the poor conditions of the Azerbaijani people. Corruption is a way of life and the people are afraid to stand up for themselves. On Music Freedom Day (March 3, 2012), globally organised by Freemuse, Cirttan played some of his songs at the Soeterijn Café in Amsterdam. On the eve of this event we had a conversation about his hopes and fears for Azerbaijan and his role as an activist.