(Bloomberg) -- Javid Gara is a 32-year-old, self-employed electrician who moved from Baku to England’s Manchester three years ago. He also runs Azerbaijan’s only independent climate group, campaigning to clean up the environment and cut emissions.Activism of any kind is a rarity in Azerbaijan, which is this week hosting thousands of climate campaigners, scientists, diplomats, executives and world leaders for the COP29 climate summit. Draconian laws restrict local civil society groups and how they’re funded, leading to dozens of arrests in the past decade.
Azerbaijan scores near the bottom of democracy rankings issued by Freedom House, a US nonprofit. The number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan has more than tripled since early 2023, reaching 319 just two months before the start of the United Nations summit in Baku, according to the Institute for Peace and Democracy.
The government cracked down even further on political dissent in the runup to COP29, limiting free speech and the activities of opposition parties, according to Florian Irminger, president of Progress & Change Action Lab, an advisory group. That atmosphere of fear led dozens of lawyers and human rights defenders to flee Azerbaijan in the weeks before the conference, Irminger says.
“We just feel it’s unpredictable and there hasn’t been any ease in the repression in the last few weeks,” he said. “There could well be more arrests.”
Gara says his organization, Ecofront, isn’t officially registered and receives no funding so it can’t be accused of smuggling foreign money — a common charge leveled against activists when they’re arrested. That’s why he and his colleagues have other jobs to pay the bills. The group uses drones to gather evidence of ecological destruction, then uses social media and direct action to push for change. The approach has successfully halted the chopping down of some forests to make way for farming, Gara says.
In February, Gara was among five activists who signed a two-page document calling on President Ilham Aliyev’s administration to take eight steps to make COP29 a success. The coalition, which calls itself the Azerbaijani Climate Justice Initiative, asked the government to release political prisoners, allow more freedom for non-governmental organizations, set ambitious emissions targets and come up with plan to clean up oil-contaminated areas.
Two months later, Anar Mammadli, who spearheaded that initiative, was arrested and charged with smuggling money. The 46-year-old activist is still imprisoned, with his health deteriorating due to chronic bronchitis and arthritis. The Climate Justice Initiative has since disbanded as other members worried they might be next.
Aliyev’s top aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, has dismissed allegations of unjustly arresting of journalists and other activists. Speaking to reporters at COP29, he said the arrests were related specifically to charges of money smuggling and reiterated that all freedoms are protected in Azerbiajan. After multiple media outlets questioned if the country’s dependence on gas exports created a conflict of interest with its role as COP president, Aliyev on Tuesday accused the “western fake media and so-called independent NGOs” of spreading “false information.”
The treatment of activists in Azerbaijan runs contrary to the stated aim of democratic countries and the United Nations climate change secretariat to help civil society push their governments to take more aggressive steps to cut carbon emissions and achieve the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperatures in check. The last two COP host countries, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, also have drawn criticism over human rights. Freedom House classifies both countries as “not free,” with weighted average democracy score of 18 out of 100 on its index.
The host country agreement between the UNFCCC, which oversees the COP summits, and Azerbaijan says conference attendees shall “enjoy immunity for legal process” for what they say and do. But it also asks delegates to respect local laws and not interfere in Azerbaijan’s “internal affairs,” according to a leaked copy of the deal obtained by Human Rights Watch.
Azerbaijan ended up hosting COP29 after the war in Ukraine caused a stalemate between the Eastern European bloc of countries that was tasked with choosing this year’s host. Russia said it would block any bid by a European Union country that supported Ukraine, leaving just a handful of nations to choose from, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Serbia and Montenegro.
In July, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate change chief, declined a request by Mammadli’s supporters to visit him in prison during a pre-COP trip to Azerbaijan. The UNFCCC said it wasn’t their responsibility to advocate for Mammadli, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg Green.
The UNFCCC and COP29 presidency declined to comment.
Gubad Ibadoghlu, a 53-year-old economist and visiting professor with the London School of Economics, was arrested in July while on a trip to Azerbaijan for family reasons. He published research last year questioning whether Azerbaijan can deliver on a deal to supply the European Union with gas as an alternative to Russia. Ibadoghlu concluded that, in order to meet its obligations by 2027, Azerbaijan would have to purchase additional gas from Russia and Turkmenistan and sell it to Europe.
“He was traveling back from grocery shopping with my mother when they were ambushed by four other cars, two of which collided with their vehicle to force it to stop,” said Ibad Bayramov, Ibadoghlu’s 24-year-old son. More than 15 men, dressed as civilians, got out of the cars and forcibly detained them, he says.“It’s impossible to believe there could be environmental progress when the government is suppressing civil society members who are able to keep the government accountable,” Bayramov said.Despite the risks, Gara is continuing to push for stronger climate action and is attending COP29. He obtained his pass through a wider network of NGOs. “The objectives of COP29 are much bigger than Azerbaijan’s objectives,” he said. “We can’t wait another year just because the Azerbaijan government is authoritarian and corrupt.”
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--With assistance from Zulfugar Agayev.
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