HRC 47th Session: Statement by the Delegation of Armenia during the ID with Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Mr. Morris Tidball-Binz

30 June, 2021

June 28, 2021

HRC 47th Session: ID with Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Mr. Morris Tidball-Binz under Agenda Item 3

As delivered by Mr. Nairi Petrossian, Deputy Permanent Representative of Armenia

President,

Armenia warmly welcomes Mr. Tidball-Binz. We took careful note of the report prepared by the previous mandate holder. She articulated her views loud and clear, which could have caused certain stirs, but it never deterred her. We are grateful to Ms. Callamard for not shying away from discussing the Armenian Genocide.

She also addressed the issue of Armenian soldiers killed by Azerbaijani forces while hors de combat, degrading treatment by Azerbaijani forces of the remains of soldiers, including mass burials, as well as ill-treatment of detained Armenian combatants and civilians. The most shocking of all was a video circulated online in mid-October 2020 showing two Armenians dressed in camouflage being shot and killed as an order in Azeri was heard to “aim at their heads”. The High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed serious concern about this video showing war crimes being committed, and diligently assessed this information as “compelling and deeply disturbing”.

Armenia urges the SR to follow assiduously up on communications issued by the preceding mandate holder. We would also like to learn your views on her idea to rename this mandate and focus it on the right to life.

I thank you.

Right of Reply

President,

Armenia requested the floor to exercise its right of reply and refute the allegations made by Azerbaijan.

The decades-long state policy of dissemination of hatred against ethnic Armenians has been materialized in cruelty, inhumane and degrading treatment of the captive Armenians. The social media accounts of the Azerbaijani users are full of images and video footages of degrading treatment and torture of the Armenian detainees.

Cases of summary executions of Armenian Prisoners of War and civilian captives are numerous and well documented. The Human Rights Watch published three reports on the mistreatment of Armenian prisoners and elaborated on the cases of executions. In particular, Mr. Arsen Gharakhanian, a civilian and a father of four, was found shot dead on January 18, 2021, in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Hadrut district occupied by the Azerbaijani forces. He was considered as a civilian detainee based on a video circulated through the online social networks on January 7. The video was used as an evidence for the application to the European Court of Human Rights which issued an “interim measure” requiring Baku to provide information about Mr. Gharakhanian’s whereabouts and guarantee his safety. Instead, his slain body was repatriated.

Another report was published in “The Guardian” in December 2020 on the beheading of two Armenian elderly civilian captives by members of armed forces of Azerbaijan.

The torture and killing of Armenians are a patterned practice based on ideology of ethnic hatred meticulously injected to Azerbaijani society from schools and kindergartens. The perpetrators of such heinous crimes are being decorated by Azerbaijani leadership. Armenia was alerting about this since 2004 when an Armenian, while in a sleep was decapitated by an Azerbaijani officer in Budapest. In 2016 a Yazidi-Armenian solder captured by Azerbaijani armed forces was beheaded in an ISIS style ritual killing and Azerbaijani officer posing in photos with the head received a medal from Azerbaijani authorities.

The leadership of Azerbaijan promised to investigate the war crimes committed, however, there has been no information whatsoever about the status or outcome of any such investigation. Azerbaijan has not still responded to the communication dated 2 February 2021 by a number of the UN human rights experts, who, inter alia, requested information on such investigations.

These war crimes are direct and troubling consequence of impunity that Azerbaijan enjoyed.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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