Azerbaijan - August 2024

Human rights groups say that in recent months, Azerbaijan has launched the most thorough crackdown on civil society in a decade, in the run up to the 1 September parliamentary election and to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference in November. Activists and journalists have been detained on charges ranging from international currency smuggling to treason, including six journalists from the independent Abzas Media, election observation and rights activist Anar Mammadli, and Bahruz Samadov, a doctoral student at the Charles University in Czechia. The crackdown focuses on media and activists as previous waves of repression have largely eliminated organised independent civil society organisations. Even public figures who were long able to live in the country while criticizing the government, like Altay Goyushov, head of a prominent local non-profit think tank, have proactively left the country to avoid potential imprisonment. Azerbaijani human rights activists now count over 300 political prisoners for the first time since the early 2000s.

Sources: Amnesty International, International Federation of Journalists, Human Rights House, The Economist, Turan News Agency, International IDEA