Based on human rights teams, the Azerbaijani authorities is utilizing COP29 to crack down on environmental activists and different political opponents.
That is the third yr in a row that a nation internet hosting the local weather summit has been accused of repression and limiting the authorized proper to protest.
The Local weather Motion Community, a gaggle of almost 2,000 local weather teams, instructed BBC Information that defending civil society is essential if nations wish to make progress on local weather change.
The Azerbaijani authorities rejects the claims and says the federal government doesn’t maintain political prisoners.
World leaders are at present assembly in Azerbaijan to debate options to the warming planet. Nevertheless, human rights organizations have known as for a assessment of the best way nations are chosen to host the local weather summit after what they are saying is a worrying rise within the variety of prisoners of conscience in Azerbaijan.
Amnesty Worldwide's Natalia Nozadze instructed BBC Information that since Azerbaijan was introduced as a COP29 host nation in November final yr, it has change into tougher to oppose the federal government.
“We have now seen a dramatic enhance in arrests and crackdowns on any problem that the federal government deems crucial or contradicts its political agenda,” she mentioned.
Based on the Union “For the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan,” the variety of political prisoners – together with journalists, environmental activists and political opponents – has reached greater than 300 for the primary time because the early 2000s.
Gubad Ibadoglu, a 53-year-old professor at London's LSE College, researches Azerbaijan's oil and fuel sector and environmental points, however was arrested on fraud expenses in the summertime of 2023.
Greater than a yr later, he stays underneath home arrest. Human Rights Watch known as the allegations “doubtful” and Gubad Ibadoglu's daughter has requested British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for assist in liberating her father.
“I feel it’s a part of the foundations of the authoritarian authorities to arrest and imprison the individuals who have the ability to affect opinion,” Mr. Ibadoglu mentioned in an interview with the BBC this week.
He says his life is in peril on account of well being causes.
Anar Mammadli was arrested in April on smuggling expenses, simply two months after he co-founded a company that known as on the Azerbaijani authorities to do extra to hitch within the smuggling operation Paris Settlement – a significant worldwide treaty to scale back fossil gas emissions.
Environmental activists need Azerbaijan to scale back its dependence on oil and fuel, which funds round 60% of the state price range.
However in January it was introduced that Azerbaijan deliberate to increase manufacturing of pure fuel – a fossil gas – over the following decade on Tuesday President Ilham Aliyev mentioned on the COP29 local weather convention that oil and fuel are a “present from God”.
“COP29 – which was meant to be an open and inclusive platform for local weather motion – is changing into something however,” a detailed good friend of Mr Mammadli, Bashir Suleymanli, instructed the BBC.
“Civil society teams that ought to play a crucial function in holding governments to account have been sidelined or suppressed,” he mentioned.
Nazim Beydemirli, 61, was sentenced to eight years in jail in October for extortion. He was arrested final yr after protesting towards gold mining close to his village. No proof was introduced throughout his 15 months in custody. His lawyer Agil Lajic insists the allegations are baseless and are a part of a broader sample of suppressing dissent in Azerbaijan forward of COP29.
The United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which hosted earlier COP local weather summits, confronted comparable criticism over their remedy of civil society teams.
“I feel it’s a massive mistake if nations – similar to Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates or Egypt – that systematically violate human rights are accepted as appropriate host nations,” mentioned Azerbaijani journalist and environmental activist Emin Huseynov.
“President Aliyev has nothing to do with local weather change, however he sees COP29 as a singular alternative to whitewash and paint himself and his poisonous picture inexperienced,” he mentioned.
Earlier than the convention started, particular presidential envoy Elchin Amirbayov instructed the BBC: “I don’t settle for such claims as a result of they aren’t primarily based on information.
“Not Azerbaijan [differentiate] “With regard to the participation of state and non-state actors, together with members of civil society, on this world occasion.”
Every year the host is chosen from a distinct area of the world, and all nations in that area should agree on the place the COP summit ought to happen. How they might be prevented from deciding on a rustic hostile to civil society is unclear.
“All nations should be included, that’s what the United Nations is about,” mentioned Andreas Sieber of the local weather marketing campaign group 350.org. “The query is, what guidelines do you place in place?”
He has known as on the UN to make sure that the host nation settlement – the contract between the UN and the host – accommodates a clause banning the usage of spy ware towards members – which he mentioned has been a priority at earlier conferences.
The UN is permitting activists to protest on the COP, and in response the UNFCCC – the arm of the UN chargeable for local weather change – mentioned: “This yr's host nation settlement accommodates, for the primary time, provisions defending human rights, which we welcome,” a optimistic step ahead.”
However Tasneem Essop, government director of the Local weather Motion Community, mentioned: “The [UN] They’ll’t inform the host nation what they will and might’t do about their human rights scenario – that’s the problem.”
She mentioned it was as much as different nations to deal with this problem, however Ms Essop and Mr Sieber each agreed it was troublesome provided that assist for civil society was declining worldwide, not simply in Azerbaijan.
In October, members of the European Parliament condemned Azerbaijan's “repression” of activists, journalists and opposition figures, deeming its human rights violations incompatible with internet hosting COP29.
Nevertheless, Emin Huseynov believes the worldwide group has largely “deserted” on the difficulty, pointing to the British authorities's obvious silence, notably in comparison with earlier years when it publicly criticized COP27 host Egypt over its human rights report.
On Tuesday, Mr. Starmer met Azerbaijani President Aliyev at COP29, however wouldn’t say whether or not human rights or Mr. Ibadoglu's case had been mentioned.
A Overseas Workplace spokesman mentioned the difficulty was “raised recurrently” by ministers.
Tasneem Essop mentioned fixing this problem is essential as civil society performs a vital function in advancing the local weather agenda.
“It was civil society that led the struggle for the institution of a loss and injury fund [to help poorer countries deal with the impact of climate change]after greater than 30 years of nations negotiating and preventing,” she mentioned.
“Our presence actually retains them fired up. We are going to maintain them accountable.”