New York, March 4, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Azerbaijan’s February 20 arrest of Nurlan Gahramanli and February 28 arrest of Fatima Mövlamli — both freelance reporters for Germany-based outlet Meydan TV — on currency smuggling charges.
“The latest arrests in Azerbaijan’s unprecedented media crackdown show more clearly than ever that authorities’ real goal is to entirely stifle the work of independent media inside the country,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Nurlan Gahramanli and Fatima Mövlamli, along with nearly two dozen other journalists currently jailed on clearly retaliatory charges.”
In separate hearings, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, ordered Gahramanli into pretrial detention for one month and 17 days on February 21 and set a pretrial detention period of one month and nine days for Mövlamli on March 1.
The arrests bring the total number of Meydan TV journalists jailed on currency smuggling charges to nine. Police detained six of the outlet’s staff in December and arrested journalist Shamshad Agha in February. Pro-government media claimedAgha was entrusted with the “management” of Meydan TV’s in-country operations following the December arrests and “recruited” several journalists, including Gahramanli and Mövlamli.
The Meydan TV journalists are among at least 24 journalists and media workers currently jailed in Azerbaijan, one of the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. Most of them hail from the country’s largestindependent media and have been charged over allegations of bringing Western donor funds into the country illegally, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
On February 26, a Baku court moved another journalist charged on funding accusations, Toplum TV presenter Shahnaz Baylargizi, from pretrial detention into house arrest on health grounds.
New York, February 28, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Azerbaijani court decision on February 26 sentencing Aziz Orujov, director of independent broadcaster Kanal 13, to two years in prison on illegal construction charges.
“Amid an unprecedented crackdown that has seen dozens of journalists incarcerated, Azerbaijan authorities’ singling out of Aziz Orujov from among thousands of Azerbaijanis living on unregistered land for jailing on dubious illegal construction charges is breathtakingly cynical,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Authorities should immediately release Orujov and stop jailing journalists in retaliation for their work.”
The Sabail District Court in the capital, Baku, convicted Orujov of building a house for himself without authorization on a plot of land that he had purchased on the city outskirts.
The journalist’s lawyer, Bahruz Bayramov, told CPJ that although the land was not officially registered to Orujov, that’s also the case for around half a million homes in and around Baku, and that authorities had not jailed anyone besides Orujov for the offense. The fact that Orujov’s prosecution has taken place against the backdrop of authorities’ repeated announcement of plans to legalize such buildings shows that it was retaliation for his reporting, Bayramov said.
Kanal 13’s Azerbaijani YouTube channel, which has nearly 500,000 subscribers, regularly covers sensitive topics such as human rights violations and gives space to opposition views. In 2017, Orujov was jailed for a year in reprisal for the outlet’s work.
Azerbaijani police arrested Orujov on the illegal construction charges in November 2023. The next month, they added currency smuggling charges for alleged receipt of Western donor funds, arrested Kanal 13 reporter Shamo Eminov, and ordered Kanal 13 blocked. In December 2024, authorities suspended the currency smuggling case against both and released Eminov.
CPJ’s annual prison census found that Azerbaijan was among the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024. At least 24 journalists are currently jailed in retaliation for their work, most of them detained since late 2023 over Western funding allegations, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
On January 21, CPJ joined nine other organizations in calling on the Council of Europe’s parliament, when it meets at the end of the month, to challenge Azerbaijan’s escalating repression, including against the media.
The Azerbaijani delegation is currently suspended from participating in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) because the country has not fulfilled “major commitments” on human rights, the Strasbourg-based human rights body has said, citing a number of examples of its “lack of cooperation.”
The joint letter calls on parliamentarians to maintain the suspension until key demands are met, including the release of imprisoned journalists. It also urges the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset to launch an Article 52 inquiry into Azerbaijan over its persistent violation of the European Convention of Human Rights, a provision that it previously used against the country in 2015.
On 4 December 2024, Aytan Farhadova in OC media reported that human rights defender Rufat Safarov was detained in Azerbaijan a week before he was set to be awarded the Human Rights Defender of the Year award by US State Secretary Antony Blinken. That day, Safarov’s lawyer, Elchin Sadigov, posted on Facebook that Safarov was accused of hooliganism and fraud resulting in major damage.
Sadigov later posted a message written by Safarov, in which he explained that he was planning to visit the US two days after receiving his visa in order to accept the Global Human Rights Defender Award from Blinken. [not totally clear which award is referred to – ed]
‘So I was awarded as a strong human rights defender of the year. Because the United States initially nominated me, I express my deep gratitude to [Mark] Libby, the US Ambassador in Azerbaijan, and Mr Blinken, US Secretary of State, who supported my candidacy.’
State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel, during a press briefing on Tuesday, said: We’re deeply concerned by reports that human rights defender Rufat Safarov has been detained in Azerbaijan’, Patel said, adding that they were ‘closely monitoring the case.’
Frank Schwabe, the head of the German delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), criticised Safaravo’s arrest, saying that PACE will ‘respond to this in January’.
Safarov, a former prosecutor’s office official who spoke out against human rights abuses by the government, was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of bribery, fraud, and human rights violations in 2016. He was released from prison alongside almost 400 others after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued an amnesty to mark Novruz in 2019.
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.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators are trying to make progress on reducing emissions and preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Many activists, however, have criticized the decision to hold the talks in an authoritarian petrostate. The host country is also facing accusations that it is using the climate talks for business…
The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators are trying to make progress on reducing emissions and preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Many activists, however, have criticized the decision to hold the talks in an authoritarian petrostate. The host country is also facing accusations that it is using the climate talks for business, after the head of the talks, Elnur Soltanov, was caught in a secret recording promoting oil and gas deals. That sting was organized by the group Global Witness, which put forward a fake investor. “In exchange for just the promise of sponsorship money, that got us to the heart of the COP29,” says Lela Stanley, an investigator at Global Witness. “We need the U.N. to ban petro interests from sitting at the table, from influencing the COP.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
New Zealand’s Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is going to the global climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan next week, where he will be co-leading talks on international carbon trading.
But the government has been unable to commit to using the trading mechanism he is leading high-level discussions about, and critics say he is also vulnerable over New Zealand’s backsliding on fossil fuels.
New Zealand has consistently pushed for two things in international climate diplomacy — one is ending government subsidies for fossil fuels globally, and the other is allowing carbon trading across international borders, so one country can pay for, say, switching off a coal plant in another country.
Nailing down the rules for making sure these carbon savings are real will be an area of focus for leaders at the COP29 summit, starting on 11 November.
But as Watts gets ready to attend the talks, critics say his government is vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy on both fronts.
In a bid to bring back fossil fuel exploration, the government wants to lower financial security requirements on oil and gas companies requiring them to set aside money for the costs of decommissioning and cleaning up spills.
The coalition says the current requirements — brought in after taxpayers had to pay to deal with a defunct oil field — are so onerous they are stopping companies wanting to look for fossil fuels.
Billion dollar clean-ups
At a recent hearing, Parliament’s independent environment watchdog warned going too far at relaxing requirements could leave taxpayers footing bills of billions of dollars if a clean-up is needed.
The commission’s Geoff Simmons spoke on behalf of Commissioner Simon Upton.
“The commissioner was really clear in his submission that he wants to place on record that he doesn’t think it is appropriate for any government, present or future, to offer any subsidies, implicit or explicit, to underwrite the cost of exploration.”
The watchdog said that would tilt the playing field away from renewable energy in favour of fossil fuels.
Energy Minister Shane Jones says the government’s Bill doesn’t lower the liability for fixing damage or decommissioning oil and gas wells, which remain the responsibility of the fossil fuel company in perpetuity.
But climate activist Adam Currie says that only works if the company stays in business.
“The watering down of those key financial safeguards increases the risk of the taxpaper having to yet again pay to decommission a failed oil field.
“Simon Watts is about to go to COP and urge other countries to end fossil fuel subsidies while at home they are handing an open cheque to fossil fuels .. This is a classic case of do as a say, not as I do.”
Getting flack not feared
Watts says he does not fear getting flack for the fossil-friendlier changes when he is in Baku, citing the government’s goal of doubling renewable energy.
“No I’m not worried about flak, New Zealand is transitioning away from fossil fuels . . . gas [from fossil fields] is going to need to be a means by which we need to transition.”
Nor does he see an issue with the fact he is jointly leading negotiations on a trading mechanism his own government seems unable to commit to using.
Watts is leading talks to nail down rules on international carbon trading with Singaporean Environment Minister Grace Fu. Her country has struck a deal to invest in carbon savings in Rwanda.
New Zealand also needs international help to meet its 2030 target, but the coalition government has not let officials pursue any deals. NZ First refuses to say if it would back this.
Watts says his leadership role is independent of domestic politics and ministers around the world are keen to nail down the rules, as is the Azerbaijan presidency.
“Our primary focus is to ensure that we get an outcome form those negotiators, our domestic considerations are not relevant.”
Paris target discussions
He said discussions on meeting New Zealand’s Paris target were still underway.
His next challenge at home is getting Cabinet agreement on how much to promise to cut emissions from 2030-2035, the second commitment period under the Paris Agreement.
Countries are being urged to hustle, with the United Nations saying current pledges have the planet on track for what it calls a “catastrophic” 2.5 to 2.9 degrees of heating.
A new pledge is due for 2030-2035 in February.
A major goal for host Azerbaijan is making progress on a deal for climate finance.
Currently OECD countries committed to pay $100 billion a year in finance to poorer countries to adapt to and prevent the impacts of climate change.
Not all the money has been paid as grants, with a large proportion given as loans.
Countries are looking to agree on a replacement for the finance mechanism when it runs out in 2025.
Watts said New Zealand would be among the nations arguing for the liability to pay to be shared more widely than the traditional list of OECD nations, bringing in other countries that can also afford to contribute.
Oil states such as UAE have already promised specific funding despite not being part of the original climate finance deal.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
CPJ and 16 other international human rights organizations on Wednesday called on the European Union to press Azerbaijan to release around a dozen jailed journalists and improve its dire human rights record as the country hosts the United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 11-22, 2024.
The statement highlights how, in the months leading up to the COP29 conference, Azerbaijani authorities have pursued a “relentless crackdown” against independent media and civil society, “eradicating most forms of dissent and legitimate human rights work.”
At least 15 Azerbaijani journalists have been arrested since November 2023 and currently await trial on charges that could see them jailed for between eight and 20 years. Thirteen of them remain in pre-trial detention.
Democratic leader María Corina Machado and exiled presidential candidate Edmundo González won the top human rights award for representing all Venezuelans who are “fighting for the restoration of freedom and democracy.” | Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Getty Images
The European Parliament on Thursday 24 October 2024 awarded the Sakharov Prize to Venezuela’s opposition leaders. Democratic leader María Corina Machado and exiled presidential candidate Edmundo González won the top human rights award for representing all Venezuelans who are “fighting for the restoration of freedom and democracy.”
The Venezuelan opposition leaders were nominated by the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The far-right Patriots group rallied behind them after their original candidate, tech billionaire Elon Musk, failed to make the shortlist for the prestigious prize.
After Venezuela’s elections in late July, in which incumbent socialist President Nicolás Maduro declared victory for another term, the European Union’s foreign service said it would not recognize the results because the government had failed to release supporting voting records from polling stations.
The authoritarian Maduro’s disputed declaration of victory sparked massive opposition protests and a violent government crackdown that left more than two dozen people dead and nearly 200 injured.
Later, presidential candidate González — who fled to Madrid during the crackdown — was recognized by the European Parliament as the country’s legitimate leader.
Two other finalists made the shortlist. One was Gubad Ibadoghlu, a jailed Azerbaijani dissident and critic of the fossil fuel industry nominated by the Greens. The other finalist was a joint nomination of Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun. The groups, who announced a partnership in 2022, were nominated by the Socialists and the Renew group.
Exclusive: Those with ‘interest in keeping world hooked on fossil fuels’ should not oversee climate talks, say report authors
Azerbaijan, the host of the Cop29 global climate summit, will see a large expansion of fossil gas production in the next decade, a new report has revealed. The authors said that the crucial negotiations should not be overseen by “those with a vested interest in keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels”.
Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, and its partners are set to raise the country’s annual gas production from 37bn cubic metres (bcm) today to 49bcm by 2033. Socar also recently agreed to increase gas exports to the European Union by 17% by 2026.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday revealed the host country agreement between the United Nations and Azerbaijan for next month’s climate summit, on the heels of an HRW report exposing “the government’s concerted efforts to decimate civil society and silence its critics.” COP29 is scheduled for November 11-22 in Baku. Although the agreement was signed in August by U.N.
CPJ joined 10 other civil society organizations on Wednesday in urging the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to further pressure Azerbaijan over its “grave human rights situation” and to stop its crackdown on critical voices.
In January, PACE voted to exclude Azerbaijan’s delegation because the country had not “fulfilled major commitments” on human rights and democracy. The September 25 statement calls for “clear criteria that Azerbaijan should meet before its delegation can be readmitted to the assembly.”
PACE is the parliamentary arm of the 46-member Council of Europe, an international human rights body based in Strasbourg, France. Its autumn plenary opens on September 30.
The Committee to Project Journalists called on the Azerbaijani government to release over a dozen jailed journalists and reform the country’s deeply restrictive media laws in a letter signed by 25 organizations ahead of the United Nations Climate Conference on November 11-22, 2024.
CPJ and partners also urged member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the conference’s organizing body, to ensure all journalists can freely participate and cover conference developments without obstruction.
Invention is the mother of necessity, and Russia’s response to largely Western-imposed economic and trade sanctions has shown the extent of that inventiveness. While enduring attritive punishment in its Ukraine campaign, the war remains sustainable for the Kremlin. The domestic economy has not collapsed, despite apocalyptic predictions to the contrary. In terms of exports, Russia is carving out new trade routes, a move that has been welcomed by notable powers in the Global South.
One of the chief prosecutors of sanctions against Moscow was initially confident about the damage that would be caused by economic bludgeoning. US President Joe Biden, in February 2022, insisted on the imposition of measures that would “impair [Russia’s] ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.” The Council of the European Union also explained that the move was intended to weaken Moscow’s “ability to finance the war and specifically target the political, military and economic elite responsible for the invasion [of Ukraine].”
In all this, the European Union, the United States and other governments have ignored a salient historical lesson when resorting to supposedly punitive formulae intended to either deter Russia from pursuing a course of action or depriving it of necessary resources. States subject to supposedly crushing economic measures can adapt, showing streaks of impressive resilience. The response from Japan, Germany and Italy during the 1930s in the face of sanctions imposed by the League of Nations provide irrefutable proof of that proposition. All, to a certain extent, pursued what came to be known as Blockadefestigkeit, or blockade resilience. With bitter irony, the targeted powers also felt emboldened to pursue even more aggressive measures to subvert the restraints placed upon them.
By the end of 2022, Russia had become China’s second biggest supplier of Russian crude oil. India has also been particularly hungry for Russian oil. Producing only 10% of domestic supply, Russia contributed 34% of the rest of Indian oil consumption in 2023.
Trade routes are also being pursued with greater vigour than ever. This year, progress was made between Russia and China on a North Sea Route, which straddles the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, running from Murmansk on the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait and the Far East. The agreement between Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom and China’s Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co Ltd envisages the joint design and creation of Arctic-class container vessels to cope with the punishing conditions throughout the year. Rosatom’s special representative for Arctic development, Vladimir Panov, confidently declared that up to 3 million tonnes of transit cargo would flow along the NSR in 2024.
While that agreement will operate to Russia’s frozen north, another transport route has also received a boosting tonic. Of late, Moscow and New Delhi have been making progress on the 7,200-kilometre International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which will run from St. Petersburg in northwestern Russia to ports in southern Iran for onward movement to Mumbai. While the agreement between Russia, Iran and India for such a multimodal corridor dates back to September 2000, the advent of sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Ukraine War propelled Moscow to seek succour in the export markets of the Middle East and Asia.
As staff writers at Nikkeipoint out, the shipping route will not only bypass Europe but be “less than half as long as the current standard path through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.” One calculation suggests that the time needed to transport cargo to Moscow from Mumbai prior to the initiation of the corridor was between 40 and 60 days. As things stand, the transit time has been shaved to 25-30 days, with transportation costs falling by 30%.
Much progress has been made on the western route, which involves the use of Azerbaijan’s rail and road facilities. In March, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Digital Development and Transport revealed that rail freight grew by approximately 30% in 2023. Road freight rose to 1.3 million tonnes, an increase of 35%. The ministry anticipates the amount of tonnage in terms of freight traffic to rise to 30 million per year. In June this year, the Rasht-Caspian Sea link connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea via rail was opened in the presence of Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani dignitaries.
A further factor that adds worth to the corridor is the increasingly fraught nature of freight traffic from Europe to Asia via the Suez Canal. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been harrying vessels in the Red Sea, a response to Israel’s ferocious campaign in Gaza. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk suggested back in January that the “North-South [corridor] will gain global significance” given the crisis in the Red Sea.
Despite the frightful losses being endured in the Russia-Ukraine war, it is clear, at least when it comes to using economic and financial weapons, that Moscow has prevailed. It has outfoxed its opponents, and, along the way, sought to redraw global trade routes that will furnish it with even greater armour from future economic shocks. Other countries less keen to seek a moral stake in the Ukraine conflict than pursue their own trade interests, have been most enthusiastic.
The selection panel of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which rewards outstanding civil society action in defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Award.
Meeting in Prague, the panel – made up of independent figures from the world of human rights and chaired by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Theodoros Rousopoulos – decided to shortlist the following three nominees, in alphabetical order:
Akif Gurbanov, Azerbaijan
The nominee is a human rights defender, political activist and active member of the Azerbaijani civil society. He is the co-founder of the Institute of Democratic Initiative (IDI) and of the Third Republic Platform. He was arrested in March 2024 in a wave of arrests targeting journalists and activists in the country.
María Corina Machado, Venezuela
The nominee is a leading political figure in Venezuela engaged in denouncing human rights abuses in her country and defending democracy and the rule of law. She is the co-founder of the Venezuelan volunteer civil organisation ‘Súmate’ for civil and political freedom, rights and citizen participation.
Babutsa Pataraia, Georgia
The nominee is a leading feminist activist and human rights lawyer in Georgia. She is the Director of ‘Sapari’, an NGO focusing on women’s rights and providing support for victims of violence since 2013. She has worked for over a decade to fight against feminicide, sexual violence against women, and sexual harassment.
Stockholm, July 11, 2024 – Azerbaijani authorities have extended the pretrial detentions of 11 journalists in recent weeks as part of an ongoing crackdown on the country’s few remaining independent media outlets.
The journalists are among 13 media workers from four independent outlets charged since November with currency smuggling related to alleged receipt of Western donor funding. The charges have been brought amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijanand the West and as the country prepares to host the COP29 climate conference in November.
“Azerbaijan must stop using incarceration and travel bans as a tactic to silence and intimidate journalists,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “The authorities should drop all charges and restrictions on their movements and immediately release those still in detention.”
Authorities have rejectedmultiplepetitions by Mammadli’s lawyers to transfer him to house arrest so he can undergo further tests for suspected thyroid cancer and he has filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Council following what relatives say was an incomplete medical examination conducted while he was under police guard.
Toplum TV journalists Farid Ismayilov and Elmir Abbasov have been released under travel bans pending trial.
All of the journalists face up to eight years in prison if convicted under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code. Azerbaijani legislation requires official approval for foreign grants, which is routinely denied, while authorities exert pressure on advertisers to squeeze out domestic sources of funding.
Separately, police questioned Shamshad Agha, head of independent news website Arqument.az and a former Toplum TV journalist, on July 5 as a witness in the Toplum TV case and informed him that he was under a travel ban, the journalist told localmedia. CPJ is investigating reports that at least 20 other journalists may also be banned from leaving the country and that some are also subject to bank account freezes.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who secured a fifth consecutive term in February, has rejected criticism of the arrests, saying Azerbaijan “must protect [its] media environment from external negative influences” and media representatives “who illegally receive funding from abroad” were arrested within the framework of the law.
CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs for comment on the pretrial extensions and travel bans and the Penitentiary Service for comment on Mammadli’s medical examination, but did not receive any replies.
Stockholm, June 12, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by a series of Azerbaijani court decisions this week that further extended the pre-trial detention of six journalists with the anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media.
Police raided Abzas Media and began arresting its staff in November 2023 on allegations of conspiring to illegally bring money from Western donor organizations into the country. The six journalists, who have all been charged with conspiracy to smuggle currency, face up to eight years in prison if convicted, according to Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
“CPJ is deeply disappointed that Azerbaijani authorities have once again prolonged the unwarranted incarceration of six journalists with Abzas Media and denounces the charges as retaliation for critical reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release all detained Abzas Media staff and drop charges against the 13 journalists in the country who currently face similar accusations. Journalists must not be causalities of Azerbaijan’s diplomatic tussles with the West.”
In April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev rejected criticism of the arrests, saying media representatives “who illegally receive funding from abroad” had been arrested within the framework of the law.
State reportedly arrested at least 25 journalists and activists in last year as it prepares for September climate summit
Azerbaijan’s government has been accused of cracking down on media and civil society activism before the country’s hosting of crucial UN climate talks later this year.
Human Rights Watch has found at least 25 instances of the arrest or sentencing of journalists and activists in the past year, almost all of whom remain in custody.
Pacific civil society and solidarity groups today stepped up their pressure on the French government, accusing it of a “heavy-handed” crackdown on indigenous Kanak protest in New Caledonia, comparing it to Indonesian security forces crushing West Papuan dissent.
A state of emergency was declared last week, at least people have been killed — four of them indigenous Kanaks — and more than 200 people have been arrested after rioting in the capital Nouméa followed independence protests over controversial electoral changes
In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association declared it was standing in solidarity with the Kanak people in their self-determination struggle against colonialism.
“Like all colonial powers anywhere in the world, the first response to what started as peaceful protests is to send in more troops, declare a state of emergency and of course accuse a foreign power of fermenting unrest,” Collins said.
He was referring to the south Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan, which Paris has accused of distributing “anti-France propaganda” on social media about the riots, a claim denied by the Azeri government.
“In fact, the unrest is being caused by France itself,” Collins added.
France ‘should listen’
He said France should listen to the Kanak people.
In Port Vila, the international office of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) issued a statement saying that West Papuans supported the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) in “opposing the French colonial project”.
“Your tireless pursuit of self-determination for Kanaky people sets a profound example for West Papua,” said the statement signed by executive secretary Markus Haluk.
Part of the PRNGO statement on the Kanaky New Caledonia protests . . . call for UN and Pacific intervention. Image: APR screenshot
In Suva, the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) called for “calm and peace” blaming the unrest on the French government’s insistence on proceeding with proposed constitutional changes “expressly rejected by pro-independence groups”.
The alliance also reaffirmed its solidarity with the people of Kanaky New Caledonia in their ongoing peaceful quest for self-determination and condemned President Emmanuel Macron’ government for its “poorly hidden agenda of prolonging colonial control” over the Pacific territory.
“Growing frustration, especially among Kanak youth, at what is seen locally as yet another French betrayal of the Kanaky people and other local communities seeking peaceful transition, has since erupted in riots and violence in Noumea and other regions,” the PRNGOs statement said.
The alliance called on the United Nations and Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders to send a neutral mission to oversee and mediate dialogue over the Nouméa Accords of 1998 and political process.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, Kia Mua declared it was “watching with grave concern” the Macron government’s attempts to “derail the process for decolonisation and usurp the Nouméa Accords”.
It also called for the “de-escalation of the militarised French response to Kanak dissent and an end to the state of emergency”.
‘Devastating nuclearism, militarism’
For more than 300 years, “Te Moananui a Kiwa [Pacific Ocean] has been subjected to European colonialism, the criminality of which is obscured and hidden by Western presumptions of righteousness and legitimacy.”
The devastating effects of “nuclearism, militarism, extraction and economic globalisation on Indigenous culture and fragile ecosystems in the Pacific are an extension of that colonialism and must be halted”.
The Oceanian Independence Movement (OIM) demanded an immediate investigation “to provide full transparency into the deaths linked to the uprising in recent days”.
It called on indigenous people to be “extra vigilant” in the face of the state of emergency and and to record examples of “behaviour that harm your physical and moral integrity”.
The MOI said it supported the pro-independence CCAT (activist field groups) and blamed the upheaval on the “racist, colonialist, provocative and humiliating remarks” towards Kanaks by rightwing French politicians such as Southern provincial president Sonia Backés and Générations NC deputy in the National Assembly Nicolas Metzdorf.
Constitutional rules
The French National Assembly last week passed a bill changing the constutional rules for local provincial elections in New Caledonia, allowing French residents who have lived there for 10 years to vote.
This change to the electoral reform is against the terms of the 1998 Noumea Accord. That pact had agreed that only the indigenous Kanak people and long-term residents prior to 1998 would be eligible to vote in provincial ballots and local referendums.
The bill has yet to be ratified by Congress, a combined sitting of the Senate and National Assembly. The change would add an additional 25,000 non-indigenous voters to take part in local elections, dramatically changing the electoral demographics in New Caledonia to the disadvantage of indigenous Kanaks who make up 42 percent of the 270,000 population.
Yesterday, in the far north of Kanaky New Caledonia’s main island of Grande Terre, a group gathered to honour 10 Kanaks who were executed by guillotine on 18 May 1868. They had resisted the harsh colonial regime of Governor Guillan.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a powerful South Texas Democrat, was indicted with his wife Imelda on Friday on charges of accepting almost $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank. Cuellar allegedly accepted the payments from Azerbaijan’s state-run oil and gas company after they had been laundered through fake consulting contracts to shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar…
The signing of a controversial memorandum of cooperation between New Caledonia’s Congress and the National Assembly of Azerbaijan has fuelled more tension — and demands from anti-independence parties that the deal be scrapped altogether.
The memorandum was signed on New Caledonia’s part by one pro-independence member of the Congress, Omayra Naisseline, on behalf of Congress Chair Roch Wamytan, and by Azerbaijan’s Milli Mejtis, the National Assembly Chair Sahibé Gafarova.
It was presented as paving the way for “interparliamentary cooperation and strengthening friendly ties between the peoples of Azerbaijan and New Caledonia”.
Speaking to Azeri media after the signing, Naisseline officially thanked the Bakou Initiative Group, the non-aligned movement, for their “support to the struggle of the Kanak people”.
She said the agreement would cover such topics as “youth, culture, economics, environment and politics”.
During the official signing of the document on April 18, Azerbaijan’s flag was placed on a desk near the Kanak flag which represents New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement.
Pro-France parties were up in arms upon learning of the signing leading to Congress Chairman and pro-independence leader Wamytan held a media conference on Tuesday.
Against French colonialism Wamytan told local media that since he could not travel in person, he had asked Naisseline to sign the agreement on his behalf while she was travelling to Azerbaijan to attend a conference upon the invitation of the Bakou Initiative Group.
The “Bakou Initiative Group Against French Colonialism” was set up in July 2023, on the margins of a meeting of the non-aligned movement held at the time in the Azerbaijan capital.
New Caledonia’s Congress Chair Roch Wamytan speaking at a press conference this week in Nouméa. Image: RRB
Wamytan said the travel expenses were taken care of by the host country, and that Naisseline travelled there in her capacity as FLNKS representative.
But referring to New Caledonia’s current tense negotiations on its political future status and a French move to modify voters eligibility at New Caledonia’s local polls, Wamytan also said on Tuesday that “we need to find external backing since (French) President Macron is no longer impartial”.
“Azerbaijan has shown it has the capacity to help the (pro-independence) FLNKS, and those countries that help us can take initiatives vis-à-vis France, and this is what we need so that our voice can be heard,” he said, referring to New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people’s right to self-determination.
Both Wamytan and Naisseline belong to the Union Calédonienne (UC), a major component of the pro-independence front FLNKS.
Other FLNKS components such as the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union of Melanesian Parties) have yet to comment on the fresh controversy.
‘Inappropriate’ and ‘shameful’ This has since prompted an open row between pro-France parties within the Congress, who are denouncing the move as “inappropriate” and “shameful”.
Les Loyalistes Congress caucus head Françoise Suvé told local media: “For Omayra Naisseline to go there and claim that she is representing the people of New Caledonia and its Congress is just unacceptable.”
Pro-France Calédonie Ensemble MP, Philippe Dunoyer said this was shameful.
“There is a confusion, an instrumentalisation and behind all this, a political will.
“If the FLNKS wants to travel there, it has the right to do so, but not the Congress.”
Signing up . . . Azerbaijian’s National Assembly Chair Sahiba Gafarova (left) and pro-independence Congress member Omayra Naisseline signing a memorandum of cooperation in Bakou. Image: Bakou Initiative Group
It is also understood that Nicolas Metzdorf, another pro-French MP who is New Caledonia’s representative at the French National Assembly, officially wrote last week to French Foreign Affairs Minister Sébastien Séjourné, asking France to provide a “strong diplomatic response” in reaction to “Azerbaijan’s flagrant interference”.
Relations between Paris and Bakou have been particularly tense over the past months.
In December 2023, a journalist from that country was denied entry and later deported on her arrival at Nouméa-La Tontouta international airport.
She claimed to be there to cover the French-hosted South Pacific defence ministers’ meeting in Nouméa, where hard-line members of the FLNKS were also holding protest marches against alleged French “re-militarisation” in New Caledonia.
In a joint release on Tuesday, pro-France parties Les Loyalistes and Rassemblement said New Caledonia’s Congress (including their MPs) were at no stage informed or consulted on this memorandum.
They said Naisseline had never been given the Congress’s endorsement to sign such a document on behalf of the Congress.
“In keeping with the Nouméa Accord which you signed (in 1998), local political institutions do not have powers in terms of international relations outside the Pacific region,”, the release added.
‘Shared powers’ Under the current Nouméa framework Accord (1998), which has been initiating a process of gradual transfer of powers from France to New Caledonia, the notion of “shared powers” applies to “international and regional relations”.
“International relations remain the responsibility of the [French] state, which will) take New Caledonia’s specific interests into account in international relations conducted by France and will associate [New Caledonia] to the discussions,” it says.
“New Caledonia may have representations in Pacific countries (and may) enter into agreements with these countries within its areas of responsibility.”
The pro-France parties also claim in the same document that the document signed with Azerbaijan “solely serves the aims of the pro-independence movement which is now becoming an instrument of Bakou regime’s will to destabilise France”.
“New Caledonia’s Congress cannot be seen as a partisan instrument serving foreign powers confronting France.”
They are calling for a Congress extraordinary sitting so that the accord with Azerbaijan can be declared “null and void”.
They also denounced the signing with “a country that is guilty of horrible crimes against its own population”.
Meanwhile, they have officially lodged a legal complaint for possible “misuse of public funds” associated with the trip to Azerbaijan.
The French High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Louis Le Franc, has indicated he would also challenge the legality of such a document.
Wamytan told media on Tuesday he would not nullify the pact with Azerbaijan “unless a court ruling compels [him] to do so”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
