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Petition Update of 28 August 2023
UNPUNISHED, UNCONDEMNED AND UNSANCTIONED, the Azerbaijani dictatorship continues its genocidal policy towards indigenous Armenians in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Republic of Armenia.
On 28 August 2023, the Artsakh InfoCenter reported that three young Armenians, Alen Sargsyan (born in 2001), Levon Grigoryan and Vahe Hovsepyan from Nagorno-Karabakh kidnapped by Azeri border guards in the illegal checkpoint in Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor while traveling to Armenia. They were with a Russian peacekeeping escort, at the illegal checkpoint. According to the Azerbaijani media reports, the arrested Armenians are football players of the Martuni Avo Club, wanted by Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies since 2021 for allegedly “dishonouring” the Azerbaijani flag. The young men were travelling to Armenia to continue their higher education. Now, they face a 10-day jail term…
“Azerbaijan continues its genocidal policy against the people of Artsakh, once again violating the norms of international humanitarian law. Details on the incident will be reported later,” the Artsakh InfoCenter said in a statement.
Tigran Petrosyan, the Head of the Anti-Crisis Council under the Artsakh government, called on residents of Nagorno-Karabakh to gather in the Stepanakert Square for a protest. “This is no time for silence. If we remain silent, they will come and take us all.”
On July 29, on the same illegal checkpoint on the Lachin corridor, Azerbaijani military kidnapped the 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan, an elderly patient, who was being transported from Artsakh to a hospital in Armenia for urgent surgery by officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Arrest under the protection of the ICRC is a war crime”, stated the Armenian government.
Protests have been held in Yerevan since at the offices of the UN and the ICRC. The demonstrators demand the return of 68-year-old Vagif Khachatryan from Azerbaijan, who was transported to Baku. The General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan accuses him “of the attack on the village of Meshali in December 1991, which resulted in the death of civilians.” According to Khachatryan’s daughters, who were with their father and ICRC when he was captured, the statement by the Azerbaijani prosecutor’s office that their father allegedly led “a criminal group that committed genocide in the village of Khojaly is an absolute slander.” They told journalists that their father worked as a driver in Soviet times and could not be the “organizer of the genocide.”
Since 12 December 2022, the ENTIRE population of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) - 120,00 indigenous Armenians including 30,000 children, 9,000 disabled individuals, and 20,000 elderly citizens - is under brutal siege by Azerbaijani regime. Over eight months, indigenous Armenians in Artsakh face the grave risk of mass starvation as Azerbaijan has imposed a total blockade on the Lachin (Berdzor) corridor under the watch of the Russian ‘peacekeeping’ troops deployed to secure the safety of the Armenian population and the safe traffic of the Corridor. On 7 August 2023 the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo wrote in his report that under Article II of the Genocide Convention the blockade of the Lachin corridor should be considered an ongoing Genocide.
On 22 February 2023 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Azerbaijan to immediately reopen the Corridor. President Ilham Aliyev has defiantly ignored the Court’s verdict and calls from USA, EU, and majority of the UN Security Council member states to lift the blockade. Meanwhile, 2,000 Russian ‘peacekeepers’ deployed in Artsakh, have failed to ensure the security of the population in Artsakh and the safe traffic through the Lachin corridor. Hence, we believe that the only way to prevent the ongoing Genocide is the deployment of international peacekeepers under a UN mandate in Artsakh and the Lachin corridor.
Moreover, on 23 April 2023, Azerbaijan illegally installed a checkpoint on the Corridor, in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent. With installation of the checkpoint the Azerbaijani authorities have closed the Lachin Corridor, blocking not only the access to Nagorno-Karabakh but also putting four Armenian villages of Nagorno-Karabakh in complete isolation and no connection neither with Armenia nor with capital Stepanakert.
This is a gross violation of article 6 of the Trilateral Ceasefire of 9 November 2020: “The Lachin Corridor (5 km wide), which will provide a connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. shall remain under the control of the Russian Federation peacekeeping forces” and “The Republic of Azerbaijan shall guarantee the security of persons, vehicles and cargo moving along the Lachin Corridor in both directions”.
The US government said it was "deeply concerned" by the new Azerbaijani checkpoint, and that it undermines efforts towards peace in the region. The State Department urged free and open movement of people and commerce on the Lachin corridor and called on the parties "to resume peace talks and refrain from provocations and hostile actions along the border".
Instantly, we feared that more arrests of innocent civilians of Armenian origin will occur on this illegal checkpoint, and unfortunately, we were right…Therefore, with 41,000 co-signers of this petition, we address world leaders and international organisations urging:
1- immediate deployment of international peacekeepers under UN mandate in the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor and Artsakh to secure the safety of indigenous Armenians in the region
2- the dismantlement of the Azeri illegal checkpoint on Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor, that has increased the cases of kidnapping of unarmed Armenian civilians by Azeri soldiers
3- urgently airlift essential provisions and medical supplies to 120,000 population facing Genocide through starvation
4- order President Ilham Aliyev the immediate release of ALL ARMENIAN CIVILIAN HOSTAGES & POWs illegally held in Baku.