PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
  1. Signatures
    57 out of 1,500
    Petitioning
    1. Deputy Director of UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Mr. Kishore Rao)
  2. Created By
    Hayasdan Karabagh
    Los Angeles, CA
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan refers to the systematic campaign beginning in 1998 and ending in December 2005 of the government of Azerbaijan to completely demolish the cemetery of medieval Armenian khachkars (cross stones) near the town of Julfa (known as Jugha in Armenian), Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan. Claims by Armenians that Azerbaijan was undertaking a systematic campaign to destroy and remove the monuments first arose in late 1998 and those charges were renewed in 2002 and 2005.

Numerous appeals were filed by both Armenian and international organizations, condemning the Azerbaijani government and calling on it to desist from such activity. In 2006, Azerbaijan barred European Parliament members from investigating the claims, charging them with a "biased and hysterical approach" to the issue and stating that it would only accept a delegation if it visited Armenian-controlled territory as well.[1] In the spring of 2006, a journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting who visited the area reported that no visible traces of the cemetery remained.[2] In the same year, photographs taken from Iran showed that the cemetery site has been turned into a military firing range.[3]

After studying and comparing satellite photos of Julfa taken in 2003 and 2009, in December 2010 the American Association for the Advancement of Science came to the conclusion that the cemetery has been demolished and leveled.[4]

Recent Signatures

Hold Azerbaijan Accountable for Armenian Khatchkar Destruction

Greetings, Deputy Director Rao

Newly released satellite images and analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science confirm that the celebrated medieval Djulfa cemetery, located in the southwestern quadrant of Azerbaijan, has been erased from the face of the earth. We therefore urge the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO to expressively discontinue considering the inclusion of any further monuments from Azerbaijan to the World Heritage List until the Government of Azerbaijan takes responsibility for the deliberate destruction of the Djulfa cemetery by facilitating an impartial investigation into the demolition that occurred; prosecuting those who gave orders and supervised the destruction; and designating the site where the cemetery existed as an archaeological landmark.




Five years ago starting on December 14, 2005, a local Armenian church film crew in northern Iran caught on tape approximately a hundred members of the armed forces of Azerbaijan destroying the ancient Djulfa cemetery across the River Araxes (the border between Iran and Azerbaijan). The video evidence, currently available at www.djulfa.com/film/, and reports of the destruction have been denied as "absolute lie" by Azerbaijan's president, despite confirmation by independent Azeri journalists in April 2006 about the complete vanishing of the cemetery. Using modern technology to clarify the allegations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has conducted satellite image comparison, released in December 2010, that shows the cemetery largely intact in 2003 and completely gone in 2009.





The tradition of crafting Armenian khachkars, the largest assemblage of which had been at Djulfa, was included in the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List in November 2010. Moreover, part of the Djulfa Armenian culture on Iranian territory directly across from the destroyed cemetery in Azerbaijan was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of Armenian Monastic Ensembles in Iran in 2008. The Djulfa khachkars are, therefore, part of both tangible and intangible world heritage by posthumous association. Azerbaijan, unfortunately, doesn't even acknowledge that the cemetery existed in the first place.





The satellite data comparison leaves no room for doubt that the celebrated Djulfa cemetery with its unique 3,000 medieval tombstones, intricately carved monuments of Christian Armenian art known as khachkars, has been deliberately erased from the face of the earth. The role of the World Heritage Centre is to protect all historic monuments, especially the most vulnerable ones. The only parallel to the destruction of Djulfa is the bombing of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in Afghanistan. UNESCO forcefully (and rightfully so) responded to the latter but has kept silence on the former. Now is the time for UNESCO to break that silence.

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