Crackdown in Azerbaijan: COP29 Host Country Arrests Climate Activists & Journalists Ahead of Talks

[Uncle Joe]

As we broadcast this week from the U.N. climate talks in Baku, human rights groups have warned of Azerbaijan's escalating crackdown on civil society groups, government critics and the press. Since the announcement last year of Azerbaijan as the host of COP29, dozens of activists and journalists have been arrested, arbitrarily detained or prosecuted on "bogus charges," says Giorgi Gogia, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. "Azerbaijan has had an abysmal rights record for many years, but it has dramatically deteriorated in the run-up to COP29," states Gogia, who joins us from Tbilisi, Georgia, and co-authored the recent HRW report titled "'We Try to Stay Invisible:' Azerbaijan's Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society."

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