(RNS) — World leaders, diplomats and local weather advocates are gathering to hammer out local weather finance agreements on the newest U.N. local weather summit being held at present (Nov. 11) via Nov. 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan. However the host nation for the annual summit has come underneath worldwide scrutiny for human rights and non secular freedom violations, main some activists to query why there has not been extra pushback from the worldwide local weather advocates, together with religion organizations.
Days earlier than COP29, the local weather summit, started, the Azerbaijani authorities held a summit of spiritual leaders engaged on local weather points, calling itself “well-known for its traditions of tolerance, multicultural values and inter-civilizational and inter-religious cooperation,” at the same time as outdoors observers have repeatedly raised considerations about non secular freedom within the former Soviet nation.
The federal government, led by President Ilham Aliyev, a part of a household that has led the Muslim-majority nation since 1993, requires non secular teams to register with the federal government in an effort to function legally. Within the final two years, the variety of non secular activists who’re being held as political prisoners has sharply elevated, based on Azerbaijani watchdog Institute for Peace and Democracy, a part of a broader escalation of a marketing campaign of repression that has additionally led to the arrests of journalists and different opposition figures.
The nation, funded largely by fossil gas revenues, has strengthened its military and just lately carried out what the European Parliament known as an “ethnic cleaning” of the breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh, which although internationally acknowledged as a part of Azerbaijan, had been ruled by ethnic Armenians for the reason that fall of the Soviet Union. Armenians, who hint their heritage to the institution of the oldest Christian nation, have known as consideration to Azerbaijani destruction of their non secular websites within the area, even because the Azerbaijani authorities has mentioned Armenians have destroyed Azerbaijani non secular websites.
These considerations helped Azerbaijan land on the U.S. Fee of Worldwide Spiritual Freedom’s 2024 “nations of explicit concern” record, its designation for governments that have interaction in or tolerate “significantly extreme” violations of spiritual freedom.
However when RNS reached out to the religion teams which have had a number one presence at current COPs for touch upon how they might strategy their work given these considerations over non secular liberty, most had been silent.
Azerbaijan, pink, is situated on the boundary of Jap Europe and Western Asia. (Map courtesy Wikimedia/Artistic Commons)
Of the core workforce of religion teams organizing religion actions on the final COP, the World Evangelical Alliance, the Episcopal Diocese of California and the Muslim Council of Elders, none responded to requests for remark.
The Interfaith Middle for Sustainable Growth and the Partnership on Faith and Sustainable Growth declined to reply to requests for remark, with PaRD citing its small workforce and restricted sources. A number of different religion teams that took secondary roles additionally didn’t reply.
The Rev. John Pawlikowski, a professor emeritus of social ethics at Catholic Theological Union, mentioned that within the months main as much as the U.S. election, “there’s a concern proper now on the a part of some within the non secular group to publicly criticize the COP” as a result of it would encourage now President-elect Donald Trump to drag out of the method.
The Servite priest, additionally a member of the local weather motion job drive of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, mentioned he knew of spiritual actors who had boycotted earlier COPs the place there have been limits on what contributors might say about native human rights and meant to boycott the summit in Azerbaijan. Nonetheless, he mentioned the bulk consider in persevering with with some degree of involvement.
As a proper social gathering to the U.N. Framework Conference on Local weather Change, the Vatican, Pawlikowski mentioned, “might elevate the human rights points extra strongly and the non secular liberty points extra strongly than it has.”
Nevertheless, Pawlikowski mentioned that the non secular teams that take part within the COPs aren’t ignoring non secular liberty however merely making a strategic choice to not pursue the problem throughout COP.
For a number of the non secular teams impacted by the Azerbaijani authorities’s repression, the silence of religion teams attending COP29 is a bitter betrayal.
“When one thing is going on to the primary Christian nation on the planet, they don’t care,” mentioned Arshak Makichyan, an ethnic Armenian local weather activist who misplaced his Russian citizenship after talking out towards the warfare in Ukraine. The Armenian Apostolic Christian, who mentioned his religion sustains his activism, is an icon of the Russian local weather motion due to his solo protests as a part of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future motion and his arrest in Russia for these protests after attending COP25 in 2019.
“What is going on to Armenians is actually horrible and we’d like worldwide solidarity,” he mentioned, warning he worries that Azerbaijan will likely be emboldened to go to warfare with Armenia.
The activist sees Armenian points as a pure a part of the COP dialogue of Indigenous points. “If in case you have been colonized by Western nations, then it’s colonization, however when you had been colonized by Turkey or Azerbaijan, then it’s not colonization,” he mentioned of Western individuals’s ignorance of Armenian historical past, which included centuries of Ottoman management and repression earlier than between 600,000 and 1. 5 million Armenians had been killed by the Ottoman Empire throughout World Conflict I, in what’s broadly thought-about a genocide.
Makichyan had deliberate to return to COP this yr, however he mentioned Azerbaijan denied his visa, even after he mentioned the United Nations had accepted his accreditation for the occasion.
Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 president, speaks throughout a gap plenary session on the COP29 U.N. Local weather Summit, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photograph/Peter Dejong)
The U.S. embassy of Azerbaijan and the U.N. Framework Conference of Local weather Change workplaces didn’t reply to RNS’ requests for touch upon the denial of Makichyan’s visa.
Makichyan defined, “I feel it’s actually necessary to boost the Armenian concern on the convention,” saying he was motivated to go “although my grandfather’s uncle was killed in Baku, and although my grandparents, they had been deported from Nakhchivan,” a part of modern-day Azerbaijan.
Makichyan is a part of a gaggle calling for the worldwide group at COP29 to demand the discharge of Armenian and different political prisoners held by the Azerbaijani authorities, sanctions, the proper of return for “Artsakh Armenians to Indigenous lands,” an finish to anti-Armenian destruction of cultural heritage and propaganda and divestment from Azerbaijani oil, along with a dedication to stop holding COPs in nations with political prisoners.
Azerbaijan has dismissed worldwide considerations about non secular freedom within the nation as holding pro-Armenian bias.
Kamal Gasimov, a researcher on Islam in Azerbaijan who’s at present visiting assistant professor of Arabic at Swarthmore Faculty in Pennsylvania, mentioned the USCIRF report ought to have cited third-party sources as a substitute of counting on Armenian students to jot down about Armenian monuments.
Gasimov mentioned the USCIRF report is a “political doc,” which is indicative of relationships between Azerbaijan and the U.S. Some Azeris see the doc as proof of U.S. imperialism, whereas others whose members of the family are imprisoned are grateful for it, he mentioned.
Mohamed Elsanousi, a commissioner who joined USCIRF after the latest report’s deliberation course of had been accomplished, mentioned, “Our purpose right here just isn’t actually accountable and disgrace nations. Our purpose is to enhance non secular freedom.”
USCIRF is made up of appointees by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. A minority of 4 dissented the Azerbaijan choice, expressing considerations that the nation needs to be given a much less extreme designation for its non secular freedom violations.
Regardless of controversy over the report, Gasimov mentioned the Azerbaijani authorities performs a major function regulating faith within the Muslim-majority nation, adapting an strategy from the Soviet Union that’s frequent throughout post-Soviet nations.
“If you’re a registered non secular group throughout the state establishment, the state provides you a passport, you then exist. If the state refuses your registration, you then don’t exist,” he mentioned.
The aim is “making Islam a part of the state forms, which makes Islam predictable,” in addition to “simply noticed” and “managed.” Additionally they accomplish this by “controlling books” and “attempting to co-opt the non secular leaders, charismatic leaders, (by) providing them jobs within the authorities.”
Different non secular teams, just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, haven’t been capable of register. Jehovah’s Witnesses additionally spotlight that the state has not adopted via on its said exemptions to obligatory navy service for conscientious objectors, with some believers experiencing beatings and authorized sentences.
Whereas USCIRF cites the 2009 Azerbaijani legislation requiring registration as a significant supply of the violation of worldwide human rights requirements, Gasimov mentioned the Arab Spring protests motivated the federal government to double down on management within the title of stopping radicalization and legitimized these actions by juxtaposing “the safety of Azerbaijan with what’s occurring within the Center East.”
Azerbaijani watchdog Institute for Peace and Democracy says that almost all of the 319 political prisoners within the Muslim-majority nation are “peaceable believers,” coming in at 228, which incorporates members of the Muslim Unity Motion and different Muslim theologians. Earlier than early 2023, the variety of non secular political prisoners had been beneath 100.
Elsanousi mentioned USCIRF had some documentation that “legislation enforcement additionally utilized and threatened torture, sexual assaults, and different mistreatment towards non-conforming Shia Muslims within the state custody.”
The Muslim Unity Motion, a Shia group, gained recognition, based on Gasimov, by mixing their non secular discourse with considerations about social points, like bribery and police violence.
Makichyan mentioned that Azerbaijan has beforehand used “greenwashing,” or a kind of spin that portrays the nation as an environmental protector, to get away with human rights violations, together with towards ethnic Armenians.
Wanting ahead, he emphasised the significance of spiritual pluralism. As a Christian who is aware of of genocides that Muslim Indigenous teams have lived via, “it’s actually necessary to be towards Islamophobia as a result of we Armenians, hopefully we can return to western Armenia additionally and attempt to coexist with different individuals,” he mentioned.
