Yerevan demonstrators urge UN to dispatch mission to Azeri sham trials of Armenian prisoners
4 minute read
Demonstrators gathered outside the UN Armenia office in Yerevan on Friday to demand the UN dispatch its representatives to the ongoing Azeri mock trials of Armenian POWs.
The demonstrators called on all international organizations to act to pressure Azerbaijan to stop its abuse and violation of rights of the unlawfully held POWs.
Mesrop Arakelyan, the co-founder of the Aprelu Yerkir party, said in his speech that the only information Armenia gets from the mock trials is through Azeri propaganda.
“We demand the UN agencies to step up for their obligations, visit our countrymen in Baku, assess their health condition, document the cases of abuse and sanction Azerbaijan,” Arakelyan said.
He said that the trials lack transparency and the information generated through the Azeri media could be dictated by the Baku regime in an attempt to influence the international community’s opinion.
Aprelu Yerkir co-founder Mane Tandilyan criticized the UN for what she described as ‘inaction’, and called on all international organizations to urgently act.
The mock trials are conducted in secretive conditions, which constitutes violation of international law, she said. “These trials are closed, secret. Whom are they kept secret from? If Azerbaijan claims to have a fair judiciary, then why doesn’t it allow international observers to be present,” Tandilyan said, adding that the UN has an official mandate and right to be present at such trials.
“If Azerbaijan doesn’t allow the UN to implement its mandate, just imagine what’s going to happen to the peace treaty,” Tandilyan said.
Azerbaijan has officially acknowledged that it is holding 23 Armenian prisoners despite a post-war obligation to release all POWs and detainees.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan had earlier described the Azeri trial as “mock trials.”
The detainees include former top officials of Nagorno-Karabakh such as the former presidents Bako Sahakyan, Arkady Ghukasyan and Arayik Harutyunyan, as well as former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan. They were arrested after the 2023 Azeri offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh which resulted in the forced displacement of the region’s entire Armenian population of over 100,000.
The former officials are all facing fabricated charges in what many experts and officials have described as sham trials.
Vardanyan, whose case has been separated from the others, recently announced a hunger strike in protest of the sham trial. In a statement, he called on world leaders and the international community to interfere.
He suspended the hunger strike after three weeks.
Vardanyan has vehemently denied all charges against him which include “financing terrorism” and “illegally entering” Karabakh. Vardanyan, as well as many experts, have described the charges as falsifications. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo earlier slammed the charges as bogus, emphasizing that Baku is using the show trials to cover up its crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Jared Genser, Vardanyan’s lawyer, recently said that his client’s health is in danger.
The Armenian Ombudsperson earlier called on all human rights organizations to intervene after receiving reports of torture and ill-treatment against the Armenian prisoners in the Azeri jail.
