Western countries should use this year’s COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan to pressure Baku for its “vicious crackdown” on journalists, opposition figures and activists, Human Rights Watch and Freedom Now said in a joint report.
The organizations have called on the European Union and other international organizations to protect the rights of “arbitrarily detained” political prisoners in Azerbaijan as the world’s attention turns to the autocratic regime when leaders travel to Baku in November for the annual U.N. climate summit.
“The latest wave of arrests and convictions has instilled fear in the remaining independent and critical voices. A large number of civil activists have left the country since November 2023, further reducing the diversity of organizations and activists who stand up for human rights and challenge the government,” reads the report.
According to NGOs, the European Union and its member states, which are deepening their dependence on Azerbaijan, should condition their trade relations with “concrete obligations to protect human rights”.
The report noted that the authorities of Azerbaijan bring a number of false cases against journalists and employees of NGOs related to money smuggling. They “also face a slew of other criminal charges, including illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, document forgery, and tax evasion”.
Reference was made to Gubad Ibadoghlu, a scientist in the London School of Economics who was detained last year, as well as to peace activist Bahrouz Samadov, who was arrested on charges of treason for allegedly maintaining ties with Armenian youth.
“The Azerbaijani government’s contempt for civic freedoms is putting independent groups and critical media on the path of extinction. This is not the image the government should be projecting of itself on the eve of COP29. It is not too late for the government to improve its reputation by freeing imprisoned critics and immediately ending the use of spurious charges against civil society, but it needs to act now,” Giorgi Gogia, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.
Oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan is ranked among the least democratic countries in the world and is characterized by Freedom House as a “consolidated authoritarian regime”.
In September of last year, the Azerbaijani military launched an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the mass exodus of 100,000 ethnic Armenians and the arrest of Artsakh leaders.
Last week, an open letter signed by nearly 60 U.S. lawmakers called on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “pressure Azerbaijan to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners, hostages and POWs, both Azerbaijani and Armenian”.
However, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled the country since 2003, called the call “disgusting” and promised that it “will not affect our will”.
