Ahead of COP29: Climate of repression in Azerbaijan must stop
For immediate release:
On 29 April 2024, prominent democracy and human rights defender Anar Mammadli was abducted in the streets of Baku. A former political prisoner, Anar Mammadli is now again facing multiple arbitrary charges related to the management of his organisation, the only independent election monitoring structure in Azerbaijan. Anar Mammadli is a prominent democracy and human rights defender and co-founded the Climate of Justice Initiative ahead of COP29.
Anar Mammadli is not the only political prisoner in Azerbaijan. According to the group “For Freedom of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan, 303 individuals are currently detained arbitrarily in the country.
Anar Mammadli’s detention is emblematic of the sustained repression ahead of COP29.
Politically motivated repression in Azerbaijan has not abated for over two decades. We believe the current wave of arrests has brought the country to a point of no return—each of the remnants of independent civil society and media is under attack with a clear intention of eliminating civic space. In November 2023, the authorities raided the office of Abzas Media, a news outlet that has extensively investigated grand corruption in Azerbaijan. Six employees, including the director, the editor in chief and an investigative journalist were arrested on charges of smuggling grants. This marked the onset of instrumentalisation of the so-called Abzas case to target other news outlets, such as Toplum TV and Kanal 13; non-governmental organisations, such as the Institute for Democratic Initiatives and Meclis.info; and political groups, such as the Third Republic. In May, Anar Mammadli’s Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS) was hit by arrests for the second time in the past decade.
Civil society and independent media activities in Azerbaijan have been increasingly controlled since 2013, in what was already a restrictive regime. The government then changed the NGO laws, making it impossible for local organisations to register, access funding, and pursue public interest projects. In 2014, leading civil society figures were arrested and subjected to lengthy prison sentences or made to flee the country. The European Court of Human Rights found these arrests to be politically motivated attempts to silence and punish human rights defenders for their work. Although several human rights defenders were released in 2016 after local and international pressure, the operational environment for civil society organisations never improved.
Azerbaijan will be hosting COP29 in this highly repressive environment.
This repressive environment has specifically targeted Azerbaijani civil society and media actors, like Anar Mammadli, working on climate and environmental issues. Yet, as a COP host country, Azerbaijan is obligated to organise the event in accordance with basic UNFCCC prescriptions, including engagement with national civil society actors.
At this stage, we do not believe Azerbaijan meets the conditions to foster open dialogue at COP29, to guarantee the full participation of international and national civil society, or to offer a “safe and secure conference venue for all,” as expected by UNFCCC.
The main theme of COP29 is climate aid, yet the host country has blocked development and democracy aid since September 2023 and drastically restricted access to international funding for civil society organisations operating in Azerbaijan since 2013. Participants to COP29 will need to address the clear breach of its obligations as COP29 host.
Our Campaign is launched despite the repressive environment
The Anar Mammadli Campaign to end repression in Azerbaijan is a joint project of Azerbaijani human rights defenders and NGOs. The members of the Steering Committee of the Campaign wish for their names to not be made public, whether they are today in prison or continue to live in Azerbaijan.
The Campaign is managed by Progress & Change Action Lab, on behalf and under the direction of the Azerbaijani human rights defenders and NGOs leading the campaign. Progress & Change Action Lab is a non-for-profit advisory group chaired by Florian Irminger, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Florian Irminger has worked from the hallways of the European Union and Council of Europe to the United Nations, from Central Asia to Central Africa, and from Baku to Minsk through Kyiv. His engagement with human rights in Azerbaijan is rooted in nearly two decades of cooperation with Azerbaijani civil society. He observed the trials of Anar Mammadli in 2014 and lead the drafting of the report “Breaking Point in Azerbaijan,” documenting the unprecedented wave of repression that started in 2014.
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