Azerbaijani fossil fuel critic worries he’ll be a prisoner in his own home until he dies

Under different circumstances, you might expect someone like Gubad Ibadoghlu to be speaking at a United Nations conference on climate change.

But as world leaders gather at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the economist and outspoken fossil fuel critic is about 30 kilometres away, locked inside his home, under 24/7 police surveillance.

“All of the charges are fabricated and I’m arbitrarily detained,” Ibadoghlu told As It Happens host Nil KÓ§ksal from his home in Sumqayit, where he is under house arrest. “It is a lawless country.”

Ibadoghlu, a U.K.-based Azerbaijani economist, was arrested during a trip home last summer on what human rights organizations say are politically motivated charges. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, European Parilament, and several British MPs have called for his release.

Human rights groups say Ibadoghlu is one of hundreds of political prisoners in the COP29 host country. While advocates say they hope the conference will draw attention to the plight of prisoners, they say Azerbaijani officials are already using it as a pretence to round up more critics and lock them away.

Azerbaijan’s government did not respond to CBC’s request for comment. 

A sudden and violent arrest

Ibadoghlu is an economist at the London School of Economics who researches public finance management, good governance, and budget transparency.

He’s a vocal critic of his home country’s governance, including its oil and gas industry, and has unsuccessfully tried to form an Azerbaijani political opposition party.

Because of that, he has lived in exile in the U.K. since 2017, but returned last year to visit his family. 

He was detained on July 23, 2023, and charged with selling counterfeit money and the preparation, storage, or distribution of religious extremist materials. 

His children have described their father’s arrest as sudden and violent, saying unmarked police cars surrounded and rammed their parents’ vehicle, and then dozens if plainclothes officers swarmed them. 

Ibadoghlu’s son, Emin Bayramov, told The Associated Press that police interrogated and beat his mother before forcing his parents into separate vehicles, and locking his father away.

Ibadoghlu was moved to house arrest in April 2024 because of his deteriorating health, but says he’s still being denied the medical help he needs, including cardiac surgery for an aortic aneurism, a balloon-like bulge in his heart.

“It’s like the bomb in my heart,” he said. “It could explode at any moment.”

A pre-COP crackdown

Ibadoghlu’s treatment is part of an established pattern of repression in Azerbaijan, says Rachel Denber, deputy director of Europe and Central Asia for Human Rights Watch.

“Azerbaijan has a long record of punishing critics and investigative journalists and anybody who digs too deeply into … government wrongdoing,” she told CBC.

Estimates vary of how many politician prisoners are in Azerbaijan, but Denber says local activists believe it’s upward of 200.

It’s a problem she says has only gotten worse in the lead up to COP29. Her organization has documented 33 arrests of independent journalists in the last year alone.

“The arrests picked up speed and intensity after Azerbaijan was selected as the host,” she said. “The last thing they want is to have knowledgeable people writing and publishing investigative stories that put the government in a bad light.”

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiev refused to comment on the arrests when pressed by Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman at COP29 on Wednesday.

“Surely, I’m not going to comment on any ongoing judicial processes. We are here to make a collective effort for the sake of humanity to agree and adopt important decisions on climate action,” Rafiev said.

Can COP29 make a difference?

In Canada, the federal Green, NDP and Bloc Québécois parties refused to send delegates to COP, citing Azerbaijan’s abysmal human rights record, including last year’s military invasion of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which forced 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their homes. 

Denber says she tried to attend COP29, but Azerbaijan denied her visa application. She says her colleagues with expertise in climate change and economics were granted entry, and she believes she was shut out because of her work documenting abuses in the country.

“We are really urging leaders to salvage this conference by really pushing Azerbaijan to release prisoners before the conference ends,” she said.

But Ibadoghlu isn’t holding onto hope that COP will lead to material change for him or other political prisoners.

“The regime uses this conference of COP29 to greenwash its image, presenting itself as a leader of the climate space, all while jailing political prisoners within its borders,” he said.

He says he and his fellow prisoners will never be released unless Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev orders it. 

That’s why he’s calling on world leaders — and Canada in particular — to enact sanctions against Azerbaijan in order to pressure Aliyev, echoing a proposal to Global Affairs Canada by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights last month.

“Despite the urgency of the case and the compelling evidence presented, no action has been taken to date,” he said. “World leaders … turn blind eyes to the violation of human rights and freedoms and the democracy in my country.”

Global Affairs Canada was unable to provide comment on the sanction proposal before deadline. 

Phonecalls being monitored

Ibadoghlu may no longer be behind bars, but he says he has no freedom. There are police stationed outside his home, his assets have been seized and he’s not permitted to leave the country. 

“I am under the heart-wrenching restriction in my house arrest because of constant surveillance with the cameras tracking my every move, my phone conversations being recorded,” he said. 

That includes, he says, his interview with CBC Radio. He says talking to journalists could land him back in prison. But, as far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t have “any other alternative.”

No evidence has been presented against him, he says, and no trial date has been set. The last he heard, his case was suspended indefinitely. 

That means authorities intend to keep him in limbo under house arrest until he dies, he said. 

“I’m here like a hostage,” he said.