HRC 49: Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Delivered by Mrs. Zoya Stepanyan, First Secretary

11 March, 2022

HRC 49: Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders

Delivered by Mrs. Zoya Stepanyan, First Secretary

Mr. President,

Armenia welcomes the Special Rapporteur and thanks her for her engagement with the Council.

The Report presented for this session tackles series of important cross-cutting issues. We are glad to note that Armenia is among 25 countries that registered significant improvement according to Transparency International’s Corruption perception index.

At the same time, absence of free media, democratic oversight and any accountability mechanism in neighboring Azerbaijan where corruption is endemic and entrenched in governing system, create additional security risks for my country and for the region. During the recent decade Azerbaijan and its leadership have been at the center of basically all international corruption related scandals. In a particularly warrying trend, Azerbaijani authorities respond to those scandals by consequent splash of aggressive militarism directed towards Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh as a way to divert the attention of local public opinion. Hundreds of human rights defenders, journalists and activists who reveal local and international corruption schemes continue to face severe prosecution, arbitrary arrests, abductions (including from the territory of third countries) and killings. Among the most recent cases are journalist Polad Aslanov who was sentenced for 16 years in prison and editor Zaur Gambarov, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years on hooliganism charges, both for reporting on corruption cases. 12 communications by UN special procedures to Azerbaijan on grave situation of dozens of human rights defenders remains unresponded.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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