Azerbaijan Turns into a "A large Open Air prison" of the UN Climate Change Conference – Global Issues
ROME, Oct 10 (IPS) – On November 20, 2023, Ulvi Hasanli, the director of AbzasMedia—an independent news source in Azerbaijan—, was arrested as he was about to board a taxi to Baku airport. Meanwhile, uniformed police raided AbzasMedia’s headquarters in the capital of Azerbaijan, claiming to have found 40,000 euros, which was used as evidence to accuse Hasanli of money laundering.
“I think we were focusing on very sensitive topics for the government,” explained Leyla Mustafayeva via videoconference from Berlin to IPS. He has been the new editor-in-chief of AbzasMedia since February.
The 41-year-old Azerbaijani journalist remembers that one of those “very serious” topics was related to Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan where the Armenian minority was expelled in September 2023.
“We looked into the contracts that were issued for reconstruction in the area and found out that there are many companies owned by government officials,” explained the journalist. The second issue was about an artificial lake where toxic waste from a gold mine was dumped.
Besides reporting on the protests that were brutally suppressed, journalists wanted to move forward.
“Local people are suffering from serious health problems. We wanted to take samples to check the levels of cyanide in the soil and water but the village was under the control of the police,” recalled Mustafayeva, who has been exiled since 2017.
It was in that year that her husband, Afqan Mukhtarli, an Azerbaijani journalist and human rights defender, was arrested in Georgia and transferred to Azerbaijan during an operation between Tbilisi and Baku.
Today, six AbzasMedia journalists are counted among the 23 journalists currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan. The country is ranked 164 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index published annually by Reporters Without Borders.
Observers agree that repression is intensifying from 2023. The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2024 (COP29) will be held from November 11 to 22 in Baku.
“Baku wants to silence any dissenting voice in what should have been a good year in Azerbaijan,” concluded Mustafayeva.
“The Oppressive Province”
Azerbaijan’s current president, Ilham Aliyev, came to power in 2003, succeeding his father in running the oil-rich country. The latter is a factor that strengthens the stability of the government and also opens many doors to the international role.
But its reputation does not seem to match its wealth.
The American NGO Freedom House labels Azerbaijan as “one of the freest places in the world.” It also ranks 154 out of 180 countries in the 2023 Corruption Perception Index compiled by Transparency International, a platform that operates in 100 countries.
On September 24, Human Rights Watch reminded that this is “the third year in a row that the COP has been under a repressive situation that severely limits freedom of expression and peaceful assembly” (the previous ones were Dubai and Egypt).
“You can say that the West has failed Azerbaijan’s civil society. It is clear that the priority is power, not human rights,” Arzu Geybulla, a freelance journalist from Azerbaijan, told IPS via videoconference from Istanbul.
He has not set foot in his country since he was accused of “treason” in 2014 for working for Agos, an Armenian newspaper based in Istanbul. He says that the Armenian issue and anything related to the Azerbaijani ruling family for the past thirty years are two red lines for journalists and activists.
“Repression has become worse in recent years. Journalists on the ground cannot protect themselves from all kinds of threats, especially because they lack legal protection,” Geybulla criticizes.
He refers to measures such as the so-called “Media Law”, which was passed in 2022. The Committee to Protect Journalists criticized that the announcement increased the government’s control over the papers, making it easier to shut down and close the media.
However, journalists are not the only ones targeted.
One of the most recent cases is that of Gubad Ibadoghlu, a professor at the London School of Economics and a well-known human rights defender in Azerbaijan. He also worked on the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.
On July 23, 2023, Ibadoghlu was traveling with his wife when their car was thrown into a ditch by three other cars. The couple were brutally beaten by police in uniform and later taken to a police station in Baku.
After spending the first six months in a small cell shared with five other prisoners and deprived of his medication (he has diabetes), Ibadoghlu is still under house arrest awaiting trial on charges of “smuggling foreign currency” and “spreading extremist views.” He is not allowed to use the phone, and his visits are restricted.
“It was a message to everyone: if they can arrest someone like him, they can arrest anyone,” explained his daughter Zhala Bayramova, a human rights lawyer, speaking to IPS by phone from the Swedish city of Lund.
The police also said they found 40,000 euros in the wardrobe in his office, even though there was a safe. Despite the continuing toll, the 26-year-old lawyer points to a pattern in the repression campaigns.
“In 2003, they targeted the political opposition; in 2013, NGOs; and now journalists, researchers, and academics,” emphasized the Azerbaijani woman.
“There were always political prisoners in Azerbaijan,” he adds.
There was silence
Azerbaijani journalists contacted by IPS described increasingly difficult working conditions.
“Taking one photo on the street can land you in jail. There are police everywhere; it’s like a big open prison,” the journalist told IPS by phone before asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
The Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Information and the Baku Police declined to respond to questions sent by IPS by email.
Meanwhile, arrests continue. On August 21, Bahruz Samadov, an Azerbaijani political analyst who was pursuing a doctorate at the University of Prague, was arrested.
After the police searched his house on suspicion of drug trafficking and allegedly found 40,000 euros in cash, Samadov was eventually charged with “treason.”
A few days later, another Azerbaijani researcher, Cavid Aga, was arrested at the airport and interrogated by the intelligence service about Samadov. He was about to fly to Lithuania to continue his studies but is now banned from leaving the country. Dozens of journalists and activists today face the same ban.
Aga, 31, made a name for himself as an observer, interpreting news and official statements, and providing context during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Baku then took control of two-thirds of the territory held by Armenians after a 44-day standoff.
“Although there is a strong new generation, Azerbaijan is still doing what it has always done,” Aga told IPS via videoconference from Baku.
Aga ignores when the ban on leaving the country will be lifted and is involved in a legal process to clarify his status. He admits to being very cautious in his statement “for obvious reasons.” The government, he insists, “managed to make people afraid to speak.”
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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