By Liam Scott
Washington — As officials from around the world gather in Baku for the United Nations climate change conference, civil society groups are highlighting Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, including the jailings of more than a dozen journalists over the past year.
COP29, which began Monday, is the U.N.’s annual conference on combating global warming. This year, the summit is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country where oil and gas account for about 90% of Azerbaijan’s export revenues and over half of the state budget, according to a 2024 U.S. State Department report.
Journalists who investigate environmental issues and corruption in the country risk threats, jail or attacks, according to groups including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Over the past year, Azerbaijani authorities jailed at least 14 journalists over their work. Many of the journalists are facing charges of currency smuggling, which media watchdogs have rejected as bogus.
Ahead of the climate summit, more than a dozen international rights groups called on European leaders to examine Azerbaijan’s rights record as they travel to the country for the conference.
Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Washington and their foreign ministry did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment.
“It is deeply inappropriate for a country with such a repressive human rights record as Azerbaijan — particularly one that so flagrantly and so severely violates press freedom — to be holding the U.N. climate change conference,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, told VOA.
States hosting the annual climate conference should model the transparency and accountability needed to address climate change, according to Said.
“Instead, what we have is a host state that in the year leading up to COP has cynically embarked on an unprecedented jailing spree against its brightest and most probing reporters,” Said told VOA.
Journalists in Azerbaijan Targeted in Wave of Arrests
“The fact that some of these reporters were among the few Azerbaijani journalists who have dared to comment and report critically on environmental issues only serves to highlight how jarring it is for Azerbaijan to be hosting COP29 and make the host state's cynicism and hypocrisy even more glaring,” Said added.
In 2023, Azerbaijani authorities blocked journalists from reporting on environmental protests in the village of Soyudlu against toxic waste from a gold mine. Police detained, beat, threatened, or otherwise obstructed the work of at least six journalists who reported on the protests, according to CPJ.
Leyla Mustafayeva, the acting editor-in-chief of the independent outlet Abzas Media, said she finds it strange that the U.N. conference is being hosted "in countries where the human rights records are very negative, and Azerbaijan is one of them.”
Several Abzas Media staffers have been jailed over the past year. “It was a mass attack,” Mustafayeva told VOA from Berlin, where she lives in exile. “There is always a threat.”
Abzas Media is considered one of the last remaining independent news outlets in Azerbaijan. It is known for its coverage of corruption, including allegations linked to the country’s ruling family.
Azerbaijan scores 23 out of 100 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, where 0 means highly corrupt.
Among the journalists jailed are Farid Mehralizada, an economist and journalist with the Azerbaijani Service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He has been jailed for more than five months on charges his employer rejects.
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The charges against Mehralizada — including conspiring to smuggle foreign currency, illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery — carry a combined sentence of up to 12 years behind bars.
Mehralizada’s wife Nargiz Mukhtarova said her husband’s case highlights the harsh realities facing journalists in Azerbaijan.
“It underscores how difficult it is to speak freely and to question those in power. His case is a clear reminder that journalists are often treated as threats rather than contributors to society, and it reflects a troubling disregard for human rights and press freedom in the country,” Mukhtarova told VOA.
Mukhtarova told VOA that the problem is Azerbaijan is bigger than just her husband’s case.
“This is not just about Farid,” she said. “It’s about the countless others who are silenced for wanting to tell the truth.”
During the climate conference, Said told VOA that foreign officials visiting Azerbaijan should press Baku on its poor press freedom record.
“Without international pressure, Baku is unlikely to change its repressive course,” she said.