The human rights crisis in Azerbaijan should be a high priority of the Secretary General’s office. Since the Parliamentary Assembly’s decision not to ratify the credentials of the delegation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and ahead of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Baku, the country has witnessed a notable intensification of repression, occurring in the aftermath of the presidential election on 7 February 2024 and the parliamentary election on 1 September 2024, leading to an unprecedented repression.
As this is being written, almost no independent civil society actor remains free in the country. Independent media outlets have seen their leadership arrested, and the authorities have increased pressure on the legal profession, as well as on academics and scholars. The repression is becoming increasingly focused on young individuals.
On 29 April 2024 winner of the 2014 Vaclav Havel Award of the Council of Europe, human rights defender Anar Mammadli, was arrested (again). He was sentenced to pre-trial detention on fabricated charges. His detention is emblematic of the increase of repression in 2024: Anar Mammadli is the leader of the only independent election monitoring organisation in the country and is a co-founder of the Climate Justice Initiative, a coalition of independent environmental and human rights organisations that aimed at joining forces in view of COP29. His arrest intervened after his organisation’s published its preliminary findings on the conduct of the presidential elections and right after the establishment of the Climate Justice Initiative was announced.
Read the letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe