Pressure mounts on Cop29 president to call for release of detained LSE academic

Cop29 president Mukhtar Babayev and British foreign secretary David Lammy have faced increasing international pressure to bring about the release of LSE academic, Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu after his detainment following a trip to see his mother in July 2023.

The 53-year-old professor was a vocal critic of the Azerbaijani government, with much of his research and activism centring around the issues such as budget transparency, anti-corruption and the country’s gas and oil exports.

Dr Ibadoghlu, a senior visiting fellow for international relations at LSE, was arrested on the grounds of fraud while visiting the city of Baku last summer. He was in the city visiting family and was later released under the terms of house arrest where he still remains.

Dr Ibadoghlu is also the chairperson of the Azerbaijan Democracy and Prosperity Movement which attempted to register itself as a political party but was later denied. His NGO, the Economic Research Centre, was also shut down by the Azerbaijani government in 2014. The professor subsequently went into political exile in 2017 but returned to Baku in 2023 during which his arrest took place.

His daughter, Zhala Bayramova, has directly called for David Lammy who is attending the conference to call for her father’s release. In a comment to The Telegraph, she criticised the United Kingdom government for leaving her father “in life threatening conditions”.

In a signed letter to Babayev, 157 academics advocated for the release of Babayev as the events of Cop29 come to a close this week. There have been other attempts to request the Azerbaijani government to release Dr Ibadoghlu after mentions of his health deteriorating.

This includes an open letter to President Ilham Aliyev from Amnesty International calling for his release and the provision of adequate healthcare for Dr Ibadoghlu.

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In it, a spokesperson said: “On 22 April 2024, after 274 days in detention, prominent Azerbaijani economist and political activist Gubad Ibadoghlu was moved to house arrest. The decision to transfer him to house arrest was based on his deteriorating health, including diabetes and a heart condition. However, he continues to be deprived of liberty, and is not allowed to leave Azerbaijan to receive the medical care he requires.”

The letter included a direct statement from Dr Ibadoghlu regarding the conditions he was detained in: “My window-less cell is damp, bad smelling and humid, infested with different kinds of insects…My miserable living conditions and my tormented environment contributed to my declining health.” There have also been reports regarding the professor being denied surgery for his heart condition.

Featured image via Amnesty International