14 May 2025 –

Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu, a prominent anti-corruption expert and human rights defender who has been active in the UNCAC Coalition and other civil society networks for many years, was brutally beaten and arrested by Azerbajiani authorities in 2023. He was falsely charged with counterfeiting currency and detained without due process. After spending 9 months in a prison facility, he was placed under house arrest in Baku in April 2023 and has been subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment. Despite international calls for his release by governments, the UNCAC Coalition, and other civil society coalitions and stakeholders, Dr Gubadghlu continues to be under house arrest with deteriorating health and has lived under constant surveillance and electronic monitoring. His pre-trial proceedings were indefinitely suspended on 29 July 2024, despite the charges against him remaining unsubstantiated. Some of Dr Ibadoghlu’s family members have also been targeted. 

The human rights situation in the country has only worsened over the past year, with escalating attacks on journalists, human rights activists, and other civil society actors. Human Rights Watch reports that the Azerbaijani government authorities recently re-opened a 2014 investigation, targeting “international donors and their grantees that operated in Azerbaijan with bogus charges of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, and other accusations stemming from Azerbaijan’s prohibitive rules on grants”. 

On 29 April 2025, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. Congress held a hearing on “Human Rights in Azerbaijan since the COP 29 UN Climate Change Conference”, which included a focus on the linkages between human rights violations and corruption in Azerbaijan. The hearing brought attention to the dangers facing those who oppose the government and its policies, referring specifically to the cases of Dr Ibadoghlu and other civil society activists and journalists who have come under attack. The UNCAC Coalition, as outlined in its open letter, renews its urgent call for the unconditional and immediate release of Dr. Ibadoghlu and for him to be given the medical care he desperately needs. The Coalition also expresses serious concern for all other human rights defenders, anti-corruption advocates, whistleblowers, journalists, and other members of civil society who have been arbitrarily detained or are threatened by government authorities in Azerbaijan and in other countries across the globe.