One of the most famous critics of the Aliyev regime has been imprisoned in Baku. Khadija Ismayilova, an award winning investigative journalist was arrested for ‘inciting suicide’. If found guilty she faces up to seven years in prison. Ismayilova has spent years uncovering corruption in Azerbaijan, which she has traced all the way up to…
This morning I stood outside BP’s International HQ in St James’s Square, London. I was attending a solidarity action for a missing protest. We should have been supporting a similar demo in Azerbaijan’s capital but there were no banners outside BP’s offices in Baku this morning. A woman in the distinctive blue tabard of Baku’s…
Jamie Doward, Observer
Press release by Bankwatch, Counter Balance and Platform For immediate release: August 19 Azerbaijan political prisoners list published with report’s authors on it London — Human rights activists in Azerbaijan published yesterday a list of 98 people (1) who are currently political prisoners in the country run by the authoritarian regime of Ilham Aliyev. Ironically,…
Democracy activist and Platform ally, Rasul Jafarov, was arrested and detained in Baku over the weekend. Rasul has been charged with tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship and power abuse. These are the same falsified charges that saw independent Azeri election monitor Anar Mammadli jailed for 5.5 years. Rasul’s arrest comes shortly after the prominent human rights…
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has promised up to €700 million for the disastrous Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline. In a statement the Managing Director for Energy at the public bank said “the EBRD will invest €600-700 million in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline.” The Euro-Caspian Mega Pipeline (ECMP) is a huge piece of infrastructure…
The Euro Caspian Mega Pipeline is a massive infrastructure system designed to suck gas out of the Caspian into Western Europe. Construction of the pipeline involves politics and finance as much as it does concrete building materials, and the conference I’m about to go to is one in a series of events attempting to make…
This blog is also available in Italian. The future is alternative, sustainable sources of energy. We don’t want the oil companies! This can be an independent state, a Puglia free from the oil companies Alessandro Mancini slaps the wooden table square with his palm as he talks. I am sat in a warm kitchen discussing…
So David Cameron’s been cozying up to Kazakhstan’s autocratic president Nursultan Nazarbayev, talking up ‘a new relationship’ between Britain and Kazakhstan and claiming that trade between the two countries could total £85bn. Cameron did briefly mention a letter he received from Human Right’s Watch which detailed President Nazarbayev’s appalling record on democracy and human rights…
This morning’s planned announcement that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline has been chosen as the final part of the mega gas pipeline that would run from the Caspian Sea to Italy1 has been overshadowed by controversy over when the agreement will be signed. The official announcement and a statement by the EU Commission are both expected today…






