We, the undersigned faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, write to you in support of Professor Gubad Ibadoghlu, a world-renowned Scholar and Economist from Azerbaijan who was forcefully arrested on 24 July and has been held in detention without access to legal counsel and medical treatment since then. Professor Ibadoghlu is respected across the globe for his scholarship and civil society work, evidenced not least by his past affiliations with our academic institutions.
In our leadership of a global university, we insist that our activities both at home and abroad must be grounded in the standards of academic freedom and the protection of human rights. We are watching with close attention, as are others around the world, the treatment that Professor Ibadoghlu receives while in government detention. We are especially concerned that he be given appropriate medical care and humane living surroundings.
Please demonstrate that the Republic of Azerbaijan respects these values as well by affording Dr. Ibadoghlu release from government detention, the right to legal counsel, access to needed medical care, and a thorough and transparent airing of the charges against him.
Respectfully
Karen Auerbach
Associate Professor, Department of History
Ruth von Bernuth
Professor, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
Chad Bryant
Professor, Department of History
Patrick Conway
Professor, Department of Economics
Katya Pertsova
Associate Professor and Director of the Computational Linguistics Certificate, Department of Linguistics
Graeme Robertson
Director, Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies
Professor, Department of Political Science
Steven Rosefielde
Professor, Department of Economics
Stanislav Shvabrin
Associate Professor of Russian
Patricia Lynne Sullivan
Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Public Policy
Director, Triangle Institute for Security Studies
Eren Tasar
Interim Director, Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History
Milada Vachudova
Professor, Department of Political Science
Claudia Yaghoobi
Director, UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies
Roshan Institute Associate Professor in Persian Studies, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies