Statement of the Delegation of Armenia during the Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on torture

05 March, 2021

March 5, 2021

HRC 46th Session: Item 3: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on torture

Delivered by Mr. Nairi Petrossian, Deputy Permanent Representative of Armenia

President,

Armenia appreciates the Special Rapporteur’s focus on follow-up and compliance of States with their obligations arising from the absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment.

In this context, Armenia recalls that the Special Rapporteur and other fellow UN experts called for the prompt release of prisoners of war and other captives from the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We concur that everyone deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the conflict should be treated in dignity and returned to their homes, in line with the IHL. Armenia, furthermore, agrees that failure to disclose information on the fate and whereabouts of missing persons and refusal to hand over the remains of the deceased may amount to enforced disappearance.

Armenia referred several individual cases of the extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment in the context of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to the European Court of Human Rights requesting it to exercise interim measures against Azerbaijan. The Court made a positive ruling in that respect turning down Azerbaijani claims.

Armenia urges the distinguished Special Rapporteur to follow-up on this issue given numerous cases of cruel treatment of Armenian captives and since Azerbaijani penitentiary has long been recognized for torture and inhumane treatment.

I thank you.

First Right of Reply

Delivered by Mr. Nairi Petrossian, Deputy Permanent Representative of Armenia

President,

Armenia requested the floor to exercise its right of reply to Azerbaijan.

Armenia distributed a communication that can be found under reference number A/HRC/46/G/18. It contains an Aide Mémoire on the detained combatants and civilians of Armenian origin in Azerbaijan. We invite the HRC Member and Observer States to reflect on this issue and voice their views.

President,

During the war, in October a video was shared on a Telegram channel. In it, an elderly man was forced to kiss an Azeri flag. That was 74-year-old Sasha Gharayan, abducted by Azeri soldiers several days earlier from his home in Hadrut in Nagorno-Karabakh. When Sasha asked an Azeri colonel why they wouldn’t release him as a civilian, the response he received was that there was no difference between him and a soldier, since any Armenian was an enemy. Azeri soldiers blindfolded Sasha and tied his hands and feet, brutally bet him smashing the head with the rifle butt, kicking him even when he’d fallen to the ground.

Later, his wife Anahit Gharayan discovered that Azeri soldiers had also captured their son, Arsen, as she saw him in a video shared again on a Telegram channel. In the video, her son stood in a dim room, while Azeri soldiers yelled at him. A few days later, Azerbaijani soldiers posted the second degrading video of Arsen. He did everything the soldiers asked of him, but within days the Azeri soldiers executed him anyway. The European Court of Human Rights ruled an interim measure for the protection of his Conventional rights, however that did not stop Azerbaijan from killing him.

Sasha Gharayan was released by Azerbaijan on December 14. Upon arrival he was taken to a hospital to receive treatment for the injuries inflicted on him by his captors, including a fractured skull. As he laid in the hospital, he was told his son had been killed.

Today, Sasha Gharayan, his wife Anahit, and three of their surviving children live in the forced displacement camp in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh’s capital. They lost their son, their home, and all of their worldly possessions.

President,

That’s what Azerbaijan does to Armenians, and it’s only one instance out of hundreds.

Armenia will keep requesting the HRC and its special procedures, Member and Observer States to raise their voice on this issue.

I thank you.

Second Right of Reply

Delivered by Mr. Nairi Petrossian, Deputy Permanent Representative of Armenia

President,

Armenia exercises its second right of reply to Azerbaijan to address the plight of the hundreds of Armenian hostages in its custody.

One of them is Maral Najarian, a 49-year-old Lebanese Armenian beauty stylist and mother of two, who left Beirut for Nagorno Karabakh after the August explosion. She fled Nagorno-Karabakh as military hostilities erupted and went back to collect her personal belongings after the ceasefire statement was announced. She had gone missing since then, and it took more than a month since her disappearance for the Azerbaijani authorities to confirm that she was in their custody. As per Azerbaijan’s habitual practices, the representatives of the ICRC for months have been denied access to her.

The Azerbaijani social media accounts are filled with images and videos depicting summary executions and other maltreatment of the Armenian detainees. On December 15 The Guardian reported of the two confirmed cases of beheadings of the elderly Armenian civilians. Unfortunately, since then that figure has further grown. One of the victims was 69-year-old Genadi Petrosyan, a survivor of the massacres committed in Azerbaijan in 1988. “This is how we get revenge – by cutting off heads,” a voice says off camera, while people in Azerbaijani military uniforms hold victim down and decapitate using a knife.

President,

In connection to Armenia’s appeal on the captives, the European Court of Human rights concluded: “The Azerbaijani Government have frequently failed to provide the information requested by the Court.” (End of quote). That is why Armenia is convinced that international pressure on Azerbaijan should not recede but sustain and intensify.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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