Dear Supporter!
Thank you for your commitment to justice and human rights and for your support to this campaign! We are aiming to reach 50.000 signatures, so please kindly share the Petition link once a while with your frineds and groups on social media!
Here is our update of 20 May 2022:
While the Azerbaijani authorities have been recently extolling their commitment to international obligations and bilateral agreements, they have shown no intention of releasing ethnic Armenian prisoners of war and civilian hostages. After the release of 8 hostages following the intervention of France and the EU in early February of this year, no further Armenian captives was released since.
Armenia provided all the minefield maps in Artsakh that Baku had demanded in return for the immediate repatriation of all Armenian POWs and civilian captives, but Azerbaijan has yet to release Armenian hostages. During the latest negotiations, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev agreed to release another group of captives in the presence of the President of the European Council, but this has not happened so far. Baku once again attempts to trade the lives of Armenian hostages with more concessions from the Armenian government, ignoring all agreements and international conventions [1].
With impunity from international organisations and world leaders, Azerbaijani forces continue capturing new hostages and terrorizing the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. Two servicemen, private Norik Mkrtchyan disappeared on 18 May 2021 and contract soldier Vahe Manukyan disappeared on 12 November 2021 [3]. The latest case happened in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Armenian serviceman Eduard Martirosov went missing on 23 April 2022.The Ministry of Defense of Armenia confirmed that on the way to the military base, the connection with Eduard was lost. The Azerbaijani Border Patrol Service confirmed he was taken hostage and later he was transferred to a Baku prison [2].
Only 150 Armenian POWs and civilian hostages have been repatriated from Azerbaijan since the official end of hostilities in November 2020 [5]. Meanwhile, the evidence from the legal representative of the families at the ECHR, confirms there are still over 100 ethnic Armenian hostages held illegally by Azerbaijan, which is a gross violation of article 8 of the Ceasefire Agreement of 9 November 2020 as well as the Geneva Convention for the treatment of POWs
According to the latest statistics, there are 44 ethnic Armenian hostages sentenced in sham trials in Azerbaijan (including Eduard Dubakov, age 25, ethnic Armenian with Russian citizenship). They were convicted under various false charges, from illegal crossing of the border to fully fledged terroristic acts. We remain concerned about the systematic torture and the health of Vicken Euljekjian, age 41, Ludwig Mkrtchyan, age 53 and Alyosha Khosrovyan, age 55, all sentenced to 20 years imprisonment under false accusations in summer 2021.
Additionally, the list of 73 missing ethnic Armenians had been presented by the ECHR to Azerbaijan, many of whom were identified in video recordings as being captured by Azerbaijani soldiers. Nevertheless, Yet Azerbaijan has not confirmed their weheabouts officially until now. Moreover, there are 21 civilians who are not at all accounted for, according to a report released by the RA Investigative Committee.
With more than 36,500 people supporting this campaign across the world, we continue our peaceful fight for the rights ofinnocent hostages held unlawfully by Azerbaijani regime, and demand from world leaders mentioned in the current Petition to:
- urgently send out international monitors to visit Armenian hostages and POWs held in Baku and report back to families about their health and detention conditions;
- resolutely demand from Azerbaijan the immediate release of all ethnic Armenian civilian hostages and POWs in accordance with the Third Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War;
- condemn Ilham Aliyev’s family-run dictatorship forthe ongoing violation of international laws, human rights and obligations binding all UN member states, thus destabilising wider regional peace.
Members of the British-Armenian humanitarian group
E-mail: info@britisharmenian.org
Twitter: twitter.com/arm_brit
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[1] https://asbarez.com/baku-signals-it-has-no-intention-to-release-pows/
[2] https://www.armdaily.am/?p=176535&l=am
[3] https://www.mediahub.am/post/adafd1969ccdedde1e7e0a246ab5e82a