Last night in Derbent a monument to the prominent Azerbaijani poet and thinker Nizami was desecrated.
The statue was covered by a cloth in connection with renovation of the park in which it is installed. At night the monument was scorched after unknown vandals set fire to the cloth.
The statue has already been attacked: it has been painted, and the sculpture's finger was broken off. The Azerbaijani public is outraged at what has happened, and intends to hold a protest rally, axar.az reports.
This is not the only monument in Derbent to be subjected to desecration. As Vestnik Kavkaza reported, in October a bust of Hero of the Soviet Union Shamsullah Aliyev was thrown in a landfill.
