Wednesday, October 11 2023 16:09

ArmInfo.On October 10, member of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Armen Gevorgyan gave a speech  during the debate on the topic held within the framework of the PACE Autumn Session: The challenge of far-right ideology to democracy and human rights in Europe.

As the press service of the RA NA reports, the MP in his speech  noted, in part:

" Dear Colleagues:

This Report is presented by a member of the ruling party of a country  that just accomplished a complete ethnic cleansing in Nagorno  Karabakh against its indigenous Armenian population. It's quite  strange that a representative of Azerbaijan is presenting reporton  the issue of human rights and democratic governance.

Far-right ideologies most of the time consist of nationalist,  xenophobic, militaristic, and authoritarian sentiments. All these  have been present in Azerbaijan for decades. The recent ethnic  cleansings in Nagorno Karabakh shall not be viewed as only an  Armenian concern. Creating such precedents will give incentives for  war aggression to many other dictatorships sitting on large reserves  of natural gas and oil and will promote of far-right ideology  approaches.

Today Azerbaijan illegally and immorally holds in captivity a big  number of Armenians.  Among them are persons who had in the past 25  years been elected in democratic elections and as legitimate  representatives of their people had been leading them for freedom  andand self-determination. In contrast, Azerbaijan has had the same  ruling family for exactly 30 years now, and counting. Is this a form  of far-right ideology, or a new type of democracy that has been  nurtured under the Council of Europe umbrella?

Colleagues:

The leadership of this Assembly received a report I have co-authored  in April 2022, titled " Weaponizing Religion and Potential  Consequences for European Democratic Security. " The report was  prepared to provide the Assembly with supporting evidence and  overview of the established state practice by the Governments of  Azerbaijan and Turkey of certain policies aimed at racially and  religiously inspired by violations of human rights against Armenians,  as well as attempts of mobilising Muslim societies against Armenia,  Armenians and against European countries in general. It decisively  showed that Governments of those countries had conspired to abuse the  European liberal laws and values and through makeshift 'loopholes'  ventured to create controversies inside Europe and against Europe.  The main goal, in my view, has been and continues to be the creation  of new forms of solidarity in Europe - as a bargaining chip in the  relations with European states. These efforts to proactively use  Turkic diasporal structures in Europe for the purposes of  establishing new forms of solidarity means nothing else by attempts  of weaponising religion in multicultural European societies, which  shall be a matter of concern for European security.

Let me conclude by saying that, in order to stop the spreading of  far-right radicalism, the Council of Europe has to make a crucial  homework to self clean up and suspend the membership of authoritarian  states, " MP noted.