COP29 in Baku, take a minute to think

The United Nations Climate Conference COP29 begins today in Baku, Azerbaijan. The following is a message to the international public: take a moment to remember Azerbaijan's political prisoners and the many human rights violations

On 7 November, an Azerbaijani citizen was arrested and charged with hooliganism after an attempt to commit suicide. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed that the charges leveled against the 32 year old man were due to his suicide attempt, blocking the traffic, at a time when President Ilham Aliyev was due to attend the opening of a new road nearby. That the man was charged with hooliganism after an attempt to end his life speaks to the overall approach of the authorities towards the citizens - rather than investigating the cause of the man’s intentions, punishing him for it - reminiscent of too many examples.

When citizens of Azerbaijan protest, in one way or another, they are often punished for it. Take the Soyudlu village protests in 2023, where the residents stood against a gold mining company, objecting to the company’s plans to construct a second artificial lake over its pollution impact. Rather than holding the mining company to account, village residents were met with heavy riot police violence including rubber bullets, and tear gas. Many were arrested for disobeying laws on holding and organizing protests or disobeying police. Also when residents of the Saatli village decided to take action due to water shortages affecting the village, they were met with rubber bullets.

A more recent example is that of the Songar settlement in Baku, where school children were no longer able to attend classes because families, struggling with economic problems, could not afford to pay for their bus tickets. The settlement does not have a school and the children must travel several kilometers to a nearby settlement.

Some families with multiple children of school age told local media it was simply impossible to meet the costs on a daily basis. The settlement has not had a school for twenty years. Meanwhile, bus drivers who started charging students said this was due to the increasing costs of gas.

The floods caused by heavy rains in Baku ended up wrecking homes, businesses, tunnel underpasses. Two people died in the city by drowning in a flooded tunnel. In all of these and countless other examples, the authorities - responsible for policies, infrastructure, and the wellbeing of their citizens - have not taken any responsibility, saying they are trying to resolve the matters, accusing citizens of various crimes, or simply avoiding taking any responsibility.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is proudly hosting COP29, which officially kicks off on 11 November. All participants attending COP29 will be using public transportation for free, a recent announcement said.

As part of the preparatory process, the city went through a massive makeover paralysing residents with road closures, rerouted public transportation and the impact from construction dust in the heat of the Baku summer. Some schools will be closed down for the duration of the conference. The closures are also affecting some places of work as per decisions taken by the authorities, all on the grounds to accommodate international guests attending the conference, and allegedly to prevent traffic jams.

The authorities' disregard of their own citizens, while showing greater respect and affection of international guests and others who the leadership considers government allies, is not new. When Kema Seba, a controversial African activist, was arrested in France in October 2024, the authorities were quick to call him a political prisoner and call for his immediate release.

Seba is known for praising Russia’s president Putin and for inciting national hatred. He was also among international guests who were invited to attend a conference  on neocolonialism held in Baku - something Azerbaijan has been strongly advocating for in the last two years as part of the government’s anti-Western and specifically anti-France narrative.

That conference brought together a number of representatives from small island states, including guests from New Caledonia, where Azerbaijani flags and pictures of President Ilham Aliyev were heavily featured by protesters. The Foreign Ministry was quick to deny any involvement.

Similar, when founder of Telegram Pavel Durov was arrested in France, the authorities issued a statement calling for his immediate release and on the EU, the Council of Europe and the European Security and Cooperation organization to investigate. Interestingly the Foreign Ministry seems to have missed the memo about allegations against Durov’s platform Telegram or Kema Seba’s numerous arrests and the French government’s decision to strip him of his citizenship over his actions.

Prior to his trip to France, Durov visited Azerbaijan, where he met with the officials from the Ministry of Digitial Developmet and Transport, specifically its Cyber Security Center whose staff has been trained by Israeli cyber security experts. Azerbaijan has long benefited from Israel’s surveillance technology .

When it comes to the use of platforms, in addition to an extensive network of trolls and bot accounts, the authorities often rely on to silence critics or promote the image of Azerbaijan , Telegram has been used as a platform for targeted harassment against many activists and their family members over the years. The platform’s lax approach to content moderation, especially in cases of visible harassment and spread of misinformation to name a few, has served the authorities and other relevant state and non-state actors deployed to engage in this kind of behavior.

Following Durov’s visit, the Azerbaijani parliament adopted a decision to set up a special commission on foreign interference and hybrid threats in September 2024. The set-up of the commission was justified as a need to prevent the alleged  destruction of the state and neutralize the threats of a hybrid war. In October, Azerbaijan received Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. The two countries intelligence services agreed to work together to identify and fight against the “non systematic opposition” abroad.

In a country where domestic opposition has long faced various forms of systematic crackdown , intimidation and pressure, going after critics abroad is not total news  either. Just in the last decade, numerous such cases of Azerbaijani dissidents and activists who have fled abroad have been documented by international human rights organizations.

If there is one message to convey to the international audience and stakeholders traveling to Azerbaijan to attend COP29, it is this: as guests enjoy the comfort of free transportation, traffic-free roads, and the facade of the recent makeover, do take a minute to think of countless political prisoners, including Akif Gurbanov, Bahruz Samadov, Iqbal Abilov, Anar Mammadli, Imran Aliyev and Ilhamiz Guliyev, Famil Khalilov, Elvin Mustafayev, Afiaddin Mammadov, Emin Ibrahimov, Ruslan Izzatli, Mushfig Jabbarov, Nargiz Absalamova, Elnara Gasimova, Sevinc Vagifgizi, Rail Abbasov and many more.