HRC 52st Session Item 3 - Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues - Embassy of Armenia to Switzerland and Permanent Mission of Armenia to the UN office at Geneva

HRC 52st Session Item 3 - Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues

24 March, 2023

Delivered by Hrachuhi KATVALYAN, Deputy Permanent Representative

President,

Armenia welcomes the Special Rapporteur and thanks for his report.

Armenia concurs that there is a need to mainstream the protection of the rights of minorities at the UN and further develop mechanisms to better ensure the protection of their rights. We agree that the religious and ethnic minorities are increasingly becoming targets of hate speech and violence, and even calls to genocide. It is crucial to act as a global organization to timely and adequately prevent the risks of mass atrocities. The same is true for the conflict situations.

Distinguished Special Rapporteur, we thank you for reiterating the call of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on ensuring “free and safe movement to Nagorno-Karabakh” “to avert humanitarian catastrophe.” The disruption of the Lachin Corridor leaves dire consequences. Azerbaijan aims at creating unbearable living conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh and ethnically cleanse it.

Even the binding order of the ICJ proved not to be enough for Azerbaijan to change its posture. Hence, decisive action of the UN, not least by sending a fact-finding mission on the ground is of critical importance.

I thank you.

Item 3 - Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues

Right of Reply to Azerbaijan

President,

My delegation is compelled to take the floor to reply to the intervention by Azerbaijan.

Colonial perceptions prejudices about Armenian minority made Azerbaijani authorities think that annihilation is a conventional way out. In only couple of years between 1988-1990 Azerbaijan forcefully displaced around 350.000 Armenians.

Azerbaijan has declared that it was ready to guarantee the rights and security to Armenians “just like it provides to anyone else”, as they claim. However, the Human Rights Watch and many other reputable watchdogs report a different state of affairs in Azerbaijan, where the fundamental freedoms for the citizens of Azerbaijan have been “virtually extinguished”. This is furthermore complicated by the continued racial hatred against Armenians incited in Azerbaijan.

In this regard the ICJ ruled, that Azerbaijan must (and I quote) “Take all necessary measures to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred and discrimination, including by its officials and public institutions, targeted at persons of Armenian national or ethnic origin.”

In its recent concluding observations, the UN CERD committee expressed concern about the school textbooks in Azerbaijan that (I quote) “promote prejudice and incite racial hatred, particularly against ethnic Armenians, and that ethnic minorities are marginalized in history education”. The Committee recommended to prevent ethnic hierarchizing in teaching of history. Amid this background, last September hundreds of Azerbaijani schoolchildren in the city of Sumgait referring to Armenians were forced to chant “hate to the enemy, hate, hate, hate”, video of which was proudly posted all over the social media and was reported by the BBC.

The Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (ACFC) noted (and I quote) “a very persistent public narrative surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that identifies variably “Armenia” or “Armenians” as ‘the enemy’ and openly promulgates hate messages, in particular on the Internet.”

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance stated that (I quote) “Political leaders, educational institutions and media have continued using hate speech against Armenians; an entire generation of Azerbaijanis has now grown up listening to this hateful rhetoric”.

Years of anti-Armenian hatred has manifested itself in 2020 when despicable atrocities were committed against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. It should be timely and adequately addressed to prevent future atrocities that are looming.

I thank you.

Item 3 - Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues

2^nd Right of Reply to Azerbaijan

President,

Armenia exercises second right of reply to Azerbaijan.

The notions of the so called multicultural and multiethnic nation adopted by Azerbaijan are simple tools for covering its human rights violations and negligence of the fundamental freedoms, especially when it comes to the rights of minorities.

One will not have an opportunity to listen to the disscenting views of the minorities of Azerbaijan, neither at the discussions and debates of the HRC nor at other international events, since for years they, especially indigenous ones, have been cruelly silenced.

Azerbaijani record on the scale and severity of prosecution of civil society is very well known. It has been persecuting Talysh intellectuals for years. One of them, historian and activist Fakhraddin Abbasov died in prison in 2020 as he was serving 16 years term. In 2013, Hilal Mammadov, the editor of a newspaper, was sentenced to five years in prison on trumped up charges. The Talysh minority’s leader in Azerbaijan, Novruzali Mammadov, who edited the same newspaper before Hilal Mammadov, died in prison in 2009 after being sentenced to 10 years in jail. International human rights watchdogs said that all those charges and persecutions have been politically motivated.

Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of being a mono-ethnic country. However, suffice it to recall that the Constitution of Armenia grants four national minorities a standing mandate in the parliament. There is no such regulation in Azerbaijan which still portrays itself as multi-ethnic.

I thank you.

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