Demand The Release of Professor Gubad Ibadoghlu
Demand The Release of Professor Gubad Ibadoghlu
We are concerned for the well-being, health, and human rights of civil society
advocate, Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu, who is being held in prison in Azerbaijan under
spurious charges. We urge members of Congress to call for his immediate and
unconditional release by the Azerbaijani government.
On July 23, 2023, Dr. Ibadoghlu was brutally attacked and arrested by the
authorities. His wife, Irada Bayramli, was also violently assaulted during the arrest.
According to Ibadoghlu’s family, he is being held in the Kurdekhani pre-trial
detention center outside of Baku. He has been sentenced to three months and 26
days while the government investigates charges of money counterfeiting, which
carries an 8 to 12 year prison sentence. We have no doubts that these charges are
wholly without merit.
Dr. Ibadoghlu’s health is deteriorating due to the inhumane conditions in which he
is being held. He is in a small cell with 5 other men, sanitary conditions are
substandard, and his family is unsure if he is receiving critical medication he
requires to manage type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. According to
Ibadoghlu’s family, he has difficulty breathing in prison.
Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu is an outspoken government critic, and he has exposed
Azerbaijan government’s corruption scandals in the past. He is a former member of
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative civil society board, an
anticorruption and transparency activist who has pushed for accountability in the
fossil fuel industry and has worked with environmental defenders on oil and gas
initiatives. Previous harassment of Dr. Ibadoghlu by the authorities was
documented in the Crude Accountability report, Dangerous Work:
https://crudeaccountability.org/wp-
content/uploads/Report_DangerousWork_compressed_for_web.pdf (p. 18).
Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu is a world-renowned political economist from Azerbaijan. He
commenced his career at the Economic Research Center, a Baku-based Think Tank
that promotes economic development and good governance. He was a member of
the Steering Committee of the EU Eastern Partnership Program’s Civil Society
Forum (2011-2012) and served as a representative of Eurasian’s civil society’s
representative to the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (EITI) for 2013–2019. He was elected the first chair of the Azerbaijan Think
Tank Association and Movement for Democracy and Prosperities in Azerbaijan.
Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the CAREC Think Tank Network.
He was a Research fellow at Central European University, Budapest, from 2004-
2005, a teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008-
2009, a Fulbright scholar at Duke University from 2015-2016, and a Research Fellow
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the 2017-2018 academic
year. He was a full-time lecturer at Rutgers University and taught courses in the
Department of Political Science and Economics for the 2018/2019 academic year in
New Jersey, USA. He was an affiliated postdoc fellow at the Rutgers’ Centre for
European Studies during the 2019-2021 academic years. He is now currently a
Senior visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science,
Center for European Studies until August 2025.
We urge the Congress to demand Dr. Ibadoghlu’s immediate and unconditional
release, signaling respect for human rights and concern for civic activists around
the globe, including in Azerbaijan.
We are concerned for the well-being, health, and human rights of civil society
advocate, Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu, who is being held in prison in Azerbaijan under
spurious charges. We urge members of Congress to call for his immediate and
unconditional release by the Azerbaijani government.
On July 23, 2023, Dr. Ibadoghlu was brutally attacked and arrested by the
authorities. His wife, Irada Bayramli, was also violently assaulted during the arrest.
According to Ibadoghlu’s family, he is being held in the Kurdekhani pre-trial
detention center outside of Baku. He has been sentenced to three months and 26
days while the government investigates charges of money counterfeiting, which
carries an 8 to 12 year prison sentence. We have no doubts that these charges are
wholly without merit.
Dr. Ibadoghlu’s health is deteriorating due to the inhumane conditions in which he
is being held. He is in a small cell with 5 other men, sanitary conditions are
substandard, and his family is unsure if he is receiving critical medication he
requires to manage type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. According to
Ibadoghlu’s family, he has difficulty breathing in prison.
Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu is an outspoken government critic, and he has exposed
Azerbaijan government’s corruption scandals in the past. He is a former member of
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative civil society board, an
anticorruption and transparency activist who has pushed for accountability in the
fossil fuel industry and has worked with environmental defenders on oil and gas
initiatives. Previous harassment of Dr. Ibadoghlu by the authorities was
documented in the Crude Accountability report, Dangerous Work:
https://crudeaccountability.org/wp-
content/uploads/Report_DangerousWork_compressed_for_web.pdf (p. 18).
Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu is a world-renowned political economist from Azerbaijan. He
commenced his career at the Economic Research Center, a Baku-based Think Tank
that promotes economic development and good governance. He was a member of
the Steering Committee of the EU Eastern Partnership Program’s Civil Society
Forum (2011-2012) and served as a representative of Eurasian’s civil society’s
representative to the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (EITI) for 2013–2019. He was elected the first chair of the Azerbaijan Think
Tank Association and Movement for Democracy and Prosperities in Azerbaijan.
Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the CAREC Think Tank Network.
He was a Research fellow at Central European University, Budapest, from 2004-
2005, a teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008-
2009, a Fulbright scholar at Duke University from 2015-2016, and a Research Fellow
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the 2017-2018 academic
year. He was a full-time lecturer at Rutgers University and taught courses in the
Department of Political Science and Economics for the 2018/2019 academic year in
New Jersey, USA. He was an affiliated postdoc fellow at the Rutgers’ Centre for
European Studies during the 2019-2021 academic years. He is now currently a
Senior visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science,
Center for European Studies until August 2025.
We urge the Congress to demand Dr. Ibadoghlu’s immediate and unconditional
release, signaling respect for human rights and concern for civic activists around
the globe, including in Azerbaijan.
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