The Republican Party of Armenia: Baku is doing everything possible to cover up its illegal actions with a sham trial
17.01.2025
STATEMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE BODY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ARMENIA
Today, January 17, the trial of Armenian prisoners, who have been illegally held in Baku prisons for more than a year on false charges, has begun. As a result of the military aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, which was established on the inalienable right to self-determination, the Azerbaijani regime, after forcibly displacing the people of Artsakh from their homeland and violating the fundamental norms of international humanitarian law, is attempting to give legal cover to its criminal actions. It is obvious to any reasonable person that the trial which has begun in Baku is a mockery of justice, fairness, and international law.
Armenian prisoners of war and civilians are being subjected to methods that violate international human rights standards. The criminal prosecutions against them are being carried out with blatant violations of criminal procedural norms, including the denial of the right to defense and the lack of opportunity to familiarize themselves with the case materials in a comprehensible language. It is clear that the Baku regime is doing everything possible to cover up its illegal actions with a sham trial. This show is not a judicial process, but a despicable symbiosis of the Inquisition and fascist trials. Throughout history, there have been many instances when dictators have judged freedom fighters, fascists have judged dissidents, and the victors have judged the defeated. However, the anti-Armenian and misanthropic Aliyev regime, with the silent indifference of international circles, is attempting to create a new, blatant precedent in which the genocidal perpetrator judges the genocidal victim. The Republican Party of Armenia declares that our compatriots, who are hostages of the Aliyev regime in Baku prisons, are innocent and just. By judging the military-political leadership of Artsakh, the dictatorial regime in Baku is trying to judge the entire Armenian people, to belittle their dignity, freedom-loving spirit, history and faith. We regret to note that state efforts to protect the military and political leaders of Artsakh from Azerbaijani persecution are lacking, and national efforts are far from sufficient.
The judicial farce that is starting in Baku has also become possible due to the criminal inaction and capitulationist policy of the Armenian authorities. The current administration of Armenia is, in fact, complicit in the illegality that begins today. The Executive Body of the Republican Party of Armenia strongly condemns the illegal persecution of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians by official Baku and calls on the international community and human rights organizations to raise their voices in defense of the Armenian prisoners in Baku prisons, demanding their unconditional release. We call on our compatriots in Armenia and the Diaspora to support our hostage compatriots in every way possible. The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) reaffirms that, throughout its activities, including on the international stage, will continue to prioritize this issue in the pursuit of justice and expresses its support for the families of all prisoners.
The authorities of Armenia are obviously completely indifferent to the fate of the captured leaders of Artsakh. ANC
19.01.2025
Regarding the “trials” started in Azerbaijan against the leaders of the Republic of Artsakh, the Armenian National Congress announces:
1. We express our unconditional support to the former leaders of Artsakh: Presidents Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, Arayik Harutyunyan, President of the National Assembly Davit Ishkhanyan, Minister of State Ruben Vardanyan, Commander of the Defense Army Levon Mnatsakanyan, Deputy Davit Manukyan, Foreign Minister Davit Babayan and those illegally captured and held as hostages in Azerbaijan. to our other compatriots who are being brutalized by the Azerbaijani authorities just for exercising the right to self-determination of the people of Artsakh of persecutions and tortures.
2. The legal process of realizing the fundamental right of self-determination of one’s own people outside of Azerbaijan was started and consistently continued precisely because the Republic of Azerbaijan systematically violated the rights to life, freedom, and democracy of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region and its population, carrying out state-organized mass violence, as well as conducting brutal military operations against the Armenian population not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in the entire territory of Azerbaijan (in February 1988 in Sumgait, in November in Kirovabad, In Khanlar, Shamkhor, in January 1990 in Baku, in 1991 during the “Koltso” operation in 24 settlements of Nagorno Karabakh, in 1992 in Mardakert and Martuni regions of Shahumyan and Nagorno Karabakh.
3.The leaders of Artsakh were illegally captured by Azerbaijan in September 2023, in gross violation of international norms and obligations assumed by Azerbaijan, at the exact time when Azerbaijan, violating all the agreements reached in the negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE and the tripartite declaration of November 9, 2020, was implementing the Armenian One of his biggest war crimes against the people, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians with a history of millennia and the genocide.
4. This judgment initiated by the Azerbaijani state, which has shown such behavior, declared systematic Armenian hatred as a state ideology, persecutes its own citizens and massively violates their democratic rights, has more than 200 political prisoners according to international human rights organizations, is a mockery of justice, which lacks any legitimacy. The law enforcement agencies and courts operating in Azerbaijan are just tools of repression by the authorities, which are ready to extract any result ordered by the authorities through lies, violence, torture, intimidation and various other illegalities, therefore any “document” or “testimony” presented in those trials, as well as Any conclusion of the “judicial” body will have zero credibility and legitimacy.
5.We condemn any accusation or criticism made in the public debate of Armenia, directed against the behavior of our compatriots who have become hostages in the hands of Azerbaijan and are being tortured under the conditions of this “trial” presentation. We should not be interested in what they say under inhuman pressure, but only in their life, health and safe return to the homeland.
6. The silence and inaction of the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, the United States of America, France and Russia, regarding the fate of the captured leaders of Nagorno Karabakh is unacceptable. They should first demand the freedom of those people whom they have recognized as legitimate partners in all the negotiations since the 1992 Helsinki meeting of the OSCE and conduct a dialogue with them on behalf of the bodies representing the international community.
7. The most unacceptable, however, is the obvious and absolute indifference of the Armenian authorities regarding the fate of the captured leaders of Artsakh. Armenia is obliged to publicly raise its voice in their defense, to make the issue of their release one of the mandatory requirements of the Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation and peace establishment agenda. The authorities of Armenia should address this issue to the international community, Minsk Group countries, as well as raise this issue in the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe and the European Parliament, especially demonstrating the inalienable right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. open violation by Azerbaijan.