Gubad Ibadoghlu Update: Travel Ban Remains Despite Suspension of Case

Less than a month before his pre-trial detention was supposed to end, Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu’s case was suspended indefinitely by Azerbaijan’s chief investigator, leaving Dr. Ibadoghlu under house arrest and his freedom uncertain. This suspension comes after several delays in trial proceedings and extensions of the pre-trial detention period, which officials used to keep Dr. Ibadoghlu in inhumane conditions at a Baku detention facility before he was released under house arrest on April 19, 2024. Dr. Ibadoghlu was violently abducted and arrested by Azeri police on July 23, 2023, on false charges of possessing counterfeit money–a politically-motivated act by Azeri officials to silence Dr. Ibadoghlu’s pro-democracy and economic transparency advocacy that threatens the Aliyev regime.

Since the indefinite suspension of his case in late July, Dr. Ibadoghlu remains under house arrest and his lawyers’ request for information from the investigative team has gone unanswered. In a letter to President Aliyev from Global Witness, an international NGO focused on investigative reporting and advocacy for climate justice and human rights, advocates write: “Azerbaijan’s courts have now frozen the case, cancelled trial proceedings and are preparing to keep Dr. Ibadoghlu hostage indefinitely. We ask that you free him unconditionally, allow him to seek medical treatment abroad, and reunite him with his family.”

This letter is one of many tactics in a pressure campaign during the lead-up to this November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan. Environmental and human rights advocates, including Dr. Ibadoghlu’s children, point to Azerbaijan’s almost singular dependency on fossil fuels, environment of political repression, and abominable human rights record as antithetical to COP’s mission and participating countries’ professed values.

An economist and specialist in extractive industry, Dr. Ibadoghlu is an outspoken critic of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas industry and wrote critical articles about the corruption of high-ranking officials, including the Aliyev family, and their schemes to misappropriate government money and resources to enrich themselves. Dr. Ibadoghlu was involved with many pro-democracy and transparency initiatives in the fossil fuel industry including Publish What You Pay, an organization dedicated to pursuing corporate and governmental transparency in the extractive industry sector.

The New University in Exile Consortium joins our colleagues at Global Witness and around the world calling for Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu’s immediate and unconditional release from detention. We urge participating governments, individuals, and UN officials to do everything in their power to secure the release of Dr. Ibadoghlu and all political prisoners in Azerbaijan ahead of COP29 and to ensure that, as an official United Nations conference, the summit’s host country upholds the human rights and political freedoms that the UN claims defend.