Academician Andrei Sakharov raised the issue of the Artsakh people`s  right to self-determination from all high tribunes

ArmInfo.  Academician Andrei Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner-Alikhanyan dedicated their lives to protecting the rights of the Artsakh people to self-  determination, raising this issue from all high tribunes. Former  Artsakh Minister of Culture Sergey Shahverdyan wrote about this on  his Facebook account. 

"Today is the birthday of Academician Andrei Sakharov. We remember  how the outstanding scientist and his wife Elena Bonner-Alikhanyan  dedicated the last years of their lives to defending the rights of  the people of Artsakh to self-determination, raising our issue from  all high tribunes.

This monument to the outstanding defender of human rights, the work  of the famous sculptor Andrei Potocki, was transported from Moscow  and installed with due honors in the courtyard of the 8th school in  Stepanakert, which proudly bore his name.

"Be brave, Armenians, your cause is just," - these words of the  scientist were engraved on its pedestal.  Now the monument is gone.  Like hundreds of other monuments and sculptures destroyed by the  Azerbaijani occupation administration in Stepanakert," Shahverdyan  wrote, accompanying his post with a corresponding photograph of the  sculpture.