Crackdown in Azerbaijan: COP29 Host Country Arrests Climate Activists & Journalists Ahead of Talks

AMY GOODMAN: As climate talks are underway here in Baku, human rights groups have warned of Azerbaijan’s escalating crackdown on civil society groups, government critics and the press. Since Azerbaijan was announced as the host of COP29 last year, more than a dozen activists and journalists have been arrested or arbitrarily detained, including prominent human rights and climate advocate Anar Mammadli, who is leader of Azerbaijan’s largest independent election watchdog, and Azerbaijani anti-corruption advocate Gubad Ibadoghlu, who is also a vocal critic of the oil and gas industry.

For more, we’re going nearby to Tbilisi, Georgia, where we’re joined by Giorgi Gogia, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, co-author of the recent report titled “’We Try to Stay Invisible’: Azerbaijan’s Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society.”

Giorgi, welcome to Democracy Now! If you can start off by talking about the main findings of your report?

GIORGI GOGIA: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Amy.

I just want to start with a very sad observation. I was listening to your program and watching how you interviewed, like, you know, activists globally talking about the climate crisis. And I could not help but think about the deafening silence of Azerbaijani climate activists, human rights defenders, and think about what this COP would have been like if people on whose cases — whose cases were documented in the report and on whose behalf I will be talking to you about, how different it would have been if they were there to voice their criticism, for their voices to be heard by the globe.

Let me talk a little bit about the kind of findings. And Azerbaijan has had an abysmal rights record for many years, but it has dramatically deteriorated in the run-up to COP29. Human Rights Watch and Freedom Now have documented 33 cases of arrests, [inaudible] arrests and imprisonment of journalists, activists, human rights defenders and just government critics on various bogus charges. We have also found that government has used very repressive laws to allow the — to refuse the registration of independent groups and to push them to the margins of the law, allowing retaliatory prosecutions, which we have documented in this report.

AMY GOODMAN: So, give us the example of people who have been arrested.

GIORGI GOGIA: You have mentioned the name of Anar Mammadli, and he’s the head of one of the top human rights groups. He’s a veteran human rights defender, election-monitoring watchdog, who has been arrested in April this year, shortly, weeks after he announced the establishment of, creation of a climate justice initiative intending to highlight the human rights problems of Azerbaijan in the run-up to COP29, and shortly after he published his independent observation report about the presidential elections from February this year.

This is not the first time Anar was arrested. He was arrested and served to two-and-a-half years in 2013, ’14, when, again, Azerbaijan was in the height of the crackdown against independent voices in the country. And the European Court of Human Rights has found not only there are violations of European Court in his arrest, but also that this violation, Azerbaijan pursued the ulterior motives in arresting him, intending to silence him.

Unfortunately, once again, the Azerbaijani government is attempting to silence him, after he was refused to — his registration of his one NGO was abolished, and he was refused to register the second group that was working to monitor the elections in the country. He’s serving — he’s facing multiple years, up to eight or 12 years, in prison on bogus charges of money smuggling.

Another activist, a professor, a renowned scholar, anti-corruption activist, who worked in the oil and gas field and criticized the lack of transparency of revenue in the oil and gas field in Azerbaijan, is Gubad Ibadoghlu, a renowned scholar, who was arrested last year and served nine months in pretrial detention and is currently under limited house arrest but still facing up to 17 years in jail if convicted on counterfeit and extremism charges. These are the voices you should be hearing during COP29 Baku, but you are not.

I would also highlight the cases of independent journalists from several independent media, online media outlets, Abzas Media, Toplum TV. Human Rights Watch has documented 12 cases of journalists and six other media — affiliated people with this media being arrested also in the last few months and facing money smuggling charges, tax evasion and other bogus charges. These are, you know, Ulvi Hasanli, Sevinc Vagifgizi, Hafiz Babali and others. And these are the people whose voices are again being silenced. These are the people who should be holding Azerbaijan, the powers, accountable to the people.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk about if these issues are being raised here at the COP? I mean, you have top leaders of, for example, the West, European countries, Western countries. Are they pressuring Azerbaijan to release the journalists, the climate, the human rights activists who have been arrested in these last months in the lead-up to this very summit?

GIORGI GOGIA: Well, I certainly hope so, because this has been a call from local and international human rights groups, including some governments, that they should be engaging Baku, they should be engaging Azerbaijani authorities to ensure that everyone that is on politically motivated charges in prison in Azerbaijan are released and there’s an end to the crackdown, that’s only intention is to silence the critical voices in the country. They should also be calling on Azerbaijani government to end the — to amend the laws, the repressive laws, that allow arbitrary implementation of those laws and allow the denial of the independent groups to register and be able to conduct independent, legitimate human rights work in the country.

You know, you discussed how this is a great climate crisis, and this kind of climate crisis requires robust human rights actions by all governments. But also the response to this climate crisis requires the participation by all groups, independent groups, in them. Unfortunately, the groups that we are not hearing during this COP are Azerbaijani independent civil society that are languishing in jail or are under house arrest or are in exile because they’re not able to be present in Baku, to be present and doing negotiations, to be actively kind of promoting robust climate action. And this is not just kind of arrests, but, you know, there has been — just last year, there has been other examples when climate activists — not even climate activists, like local residents of a small village, for example, in western Azerbaijan, in Soyudlu, have tried to organize, criticize the government for construction of the gold mine and the dam, and the government response has been such a heavy-handed by not only arresting and prosecuting the local population, but also cordoning, blocking the entire village for months, not allowing any journalists, confiscating their equipment and not allowing any information to get in or get out.

So, this is the country that really puts independent voices on the path of extinction. And it’s really important for Azerbaijan to end this crackdown, or for Azerbaijan’s international partners to ensure, to insist, to urge Baku to release those unjustly imprisoned and end the crackdown in the country against critical voices.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, and we just have 30 seconds for a response to this, the significance of oil and gas accounting for something like 92% of Azerbaijan’s exports? Its main importer of that gas, 80% of it, goes — what? The biggest importer is the European Union. Do you think that would stop them from criticizing the president and Azerbaijan overall?

GIORGI GOGIA: Well, that certainly should not stop them from doing it. And the EU should be insisting that as part of the partnership, as part of the negotiation, as part of the cooperation between Azerbaijan and European Union, Azerbaijan should adhere to human rights, to principles of human rights. And I hope European Union is insisting on — in direct calls or behind the closed doors, is insisting on the release of independent journalists, activists, human rights defenders, and the end to this crackdown. This is the only proper, the right response that the EU should be engaging in.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Giorgi, finally, how common is it for you to do something like this today, speak with a journalist on television inside Azerbaijan? Of course, you’re outside.

GIORGI GOGIA: Well, the reason I’m outside is because I have been detained and kicked out of the country in 2015, actually, when I was there to monitor the trial of a human rights defender. I was not allowed to get in. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, that had the registration for the COP29, was rejected, the visa, just a few days ago, and he’s not able to be on the ground to highlight it. So, the reason I am speaking from afar is because Azerbaijan is preventing many of us who criticize Azerbaijan from entering the country. It is closing, for international scrutiny, its borders. Nevertheless, we continue to do the work and highlight the cases of those who are imprisoned on nothing more but doing their legitimate human rights work.

AMY GOODMAN: Giorgi Gogia, we want to thank you so much for being with us, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, co-author of the report, which we will link to, “’We Try to Stay Invisible’: Azerbaijan’s Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society,” speaking to us from Tbilisi, Georgia.

When we come back, President-elect Trump has promised to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement again. And while filling out his Cabinet, he’s chosen oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright as his nominee for energy secretary, a fracking magnate, a climate denier, a champion of fossil fuels. We’ll be back in 20 seconds.