Monday, November 29 2021 19:03

ArmInfo. Violations of the fundamental rights of Armenians by Azerbaijan are systematic. This is stated in the statement of Artsakh Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan.

"On November 26, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, within the  framework of a trilateral meeting with Prime- Minister of Armenia  Nikol Pashinyan and President of Russia Vladimir Putin, assessed as  "sporadic incidents" the continuing since the Trilateral Statement on  ceasefire of November 9, 2020, targeted killings by the Azerbaijani  armed forces of civilians and military personnel of the Republic of  Artsakh. This statement by the President of Azerbaijan is nothing  more than an attempt to disguise as random incidents the ongoing  manifestations of the policy of widespread and systematic violations  of the fundamental rights of Armenians carried out by Azerbaijan over  the past decades.

Attacks on Armenians committed by Azerbaijani servicemen after the  signing of the Trilateral Statement, including the murder on October  9, 2021, of a tractor driver while performing agricultural work near  the town of Martakert, the execution on November 8, 2021, of  civilians carrying out repair work near the town of Shushi, and  numerous cases of shelling of the servicemen of the Republic of  Artsakh were deliberate in nature and were carried out in furtherance  of Azerbaijan's state policy of persecution of Armenians.

Azerbaijan's policy of persecution acquires an extreme degree of  brutality, especially when the citizens of Artsakh or Armenia find  themselves in the hands of the Azerbaijani armed forces. All  civilians who remained in the territories of Artsakh occupied by  Azerbaijan during its aggression in September-November 2020 were  brutally killed by members of the armed forces of Azerbaijan. In  those cases where it was possible to conduct a forensic medical  examination of the victims, it was revealed that these people were  tortured before death. In some cases, the killings of civilians were  filmed and disseminated on Azerbaijani social networks to inflict  maximum psychological suffering on the relatives of those killed and  to intimidate the population of Artsakh and Armenians in general.  Armenian soldiers who came under the control of Azerbaijan were also  subjected to severe torture, many of them were killed. Those few who  survived were illegally convicted in Azerbaijan and continue to be  held by the authorities of this country as hostages.  Armenians  living in Azerbaijan during the Soviet period became the first  victims of such a criminal policy. The deportations of Armenians from  Azerbaijan organized by the local authorities in 1988-1990, and  accompanied by mass killings, torture and pogroms, laid the  foundation for Azerbaijan's policy of persecuting Armenians, which  continues to this day. In 1991, the Azerbaijani authorities started  deporting Armenians from Artsakh as part of a large-scale  military-police operation "Ring", which became a prelude to the  subsequent full-scale aggression of Azerbaijan against the Republic  of Artsakh. The aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, which  lasted several years until 1994, was an attempt by Azerbaijan to  finally and completely expel the Armenians from their lands.

During the war of the 1990s, Azerbaijani soldiers tortured and killed  those who fell into their hands in the same way as during the  aggression in 2020. The massacre in the Armenian village of Maragha  in Artsakh's Martakert region in 1992 became one of the most tragic  episodes of this policy. Fifty residents of the village were brutally  killed, another 50 were taken hostage, including women and children.  The fate of many of them is still unknown.

Azerbaijani soldiers distinguished themselves with particular cruelty  also during the aggression against Artsakh in April 2016. Both  civilians and military personnel who fell into the hands of  Azerbaijani soldiers were tortured and executed, as was the case with  an elderly couple in the village of Talish of Martakert region of  Artsakh.

The statement of the President of Azerbaijan on the sporadic nature  of the incidents in Artsakh aims to cover up their own policy of  persecuting Armenians. It was the authorities of Azerbaijan,  including the president of this country, who openly and deliberately  encouraged any criminal acts directed against Armenians, including  killings. One of the vivid examples is the elevation of Ramil  Safarov, who killed a sleeping Armenian to the unofficial rank of the  national hero of Azerbaijan, as well as the awarding, personally by  the President of Azerbaijan, of an Azerbaijani serviceman who cut off  the head of an Armenian soldier and was walking with it through the  villages of Azerbaijan during the aggression in 2016. The impunity in  Azerbaijan, including for the premeditated killings of Armenians, as  well as rewarding of such criminals, are the most obvious evidence of  the anti-Armenian hatred policy pursued by Azerbaijan at the state  level.

The persecution of Armenians in the form of massacres, deportations,  torture and other inhuman acts has a widespread and systematic  character and is carried out by members of the armed forces of  Azerbaijan and other agents of this country deliberately, pursuant to  or in furtherance of the existing policy of Azerbaijan," the Artsakh  Ombudsman concluded.