{"id":1064,"date":"2025-04-09T22:32:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2025-04-09T22:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T22:32:33","slug":"judge-me-fairly-former-nagorno-karabakh-leader-on-trial-in-azerbaijan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/?p=1064","title":{"rendered":"Judge Me Fairly’: Former Nagorno-Karabakh Leader on Trial in Azerbaijan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Hrair Balian<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hrair Balian, who has worked for more than three decades in international conflict resolution, writes that the presence of diplomatic observers could restrain unfair practices underway in the prosecution of political prisoners from the Central Asian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was overrun by Azerbaijani forces in 2023.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hrair Balian, former director of conflict resolution for the Carter Center. Courtesy photo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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April 09, 2025
New York Law Journal\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJudge me professionally, publicly, openly \u2026 in the presence of international journalists and observers,\u201d\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0Armenian\u00a0political prisoner Ruben Vardanyan of his Azerbaijani captors this month. \u201cDon\u2019t mock the judicial system with this show trial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vardanyan<\/a>, who was effectively the prime minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been jailed since September 2023, when Azerbaijani troops overran the autonomous enclave,\u00a0detained him and other elected officials<\/a>, and drove out its 120,000 Armenians. Along with previously detained ethnic Armenians, the former human rights advocate, philanthropist, and banker is on trial on trumped-up charges and spent weeks on a recently ended\u00a0hunger strike<\/a>. Recent reports of a possible peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan make no mention of the fate of these political prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0trials<\/a>\u00a0are conducted in a closed military court, without access to chosen lawyers. Only the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to the prisoners. On March 5, the ICRC was\u00a0expelled<\/a>\u00a0from Azerbaijan, leaving the political prisoners, who number 23 in total, with access only to court officials. The ICRC was the prisoners\u2019 only occasional link to their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the expulsion of the ICRC and in the absence of other observers or journalists permitted to monitor the trials, diplomatic representatives of the United States, the EU member states and others accredited in Azerbaijan have the responsibility to demand the right to observe the trials. Diplomatic observers could at least restrain some of the grossly unfair practices underway. As former\u00a0mediators<\/a>\u00a0for Nagorno-Karabakh, the U.S., France and Russia have special responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eight elected officials detained during the expulsion were\u00a0wanted<\/a>\u00a0for what Azerbaijan called \u201cterrorism,\u201d a term that allows for carte-blanche negation of human rights. Other\u00a0charges<\/a>\u00a0have been added, including\u00a0\u201caggression,\u201d \u201cgenocide,\u201d and \u201cmilitary robbery.\u201d\u00a0They were\u00a0arrested<\/a>, humiliated in public, and jailed in Baku prisons along with fifteen other Armenian POWs and civilian men held hostage on trumped-up charges. These prisoners\u2019 only \u201ccrime\u201d is their Armenian nationality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Populated by ethnic Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh\u00a0broke away<\/a>\u00a0from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1991, shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed. A ceasefire in 1994 ended a bloody three-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the disputed territory was self-governed until Azerbaijan\u2019s decisive September 2023 offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\u00a0offensive<\/a>\u00a0was preceded by an Azerbaijani starvation\u00a0siege<\/a>\u00a0of the enclave. For nine months, multiple\u00a0governments<\/a>, the\u00a0International Court of Justice<\/a>, and other institutions urged Azerbaijan to end it. Azerbaijan ignored them with impunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair trials are a basic human right\u2014one of the principles recognized in the\u00a0Universal<\/a>\u00a0Declaration of Human Rights accepted by all UN-member states. The right has been reaffirmed in legally binding treaties, including the International\u00a0Covenant<\/a>\u00a0on Civil and Political Rights that Azerbaijan\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0in 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These international obligations require that everyone in detention or facing criminal charges benefit from the right to a lawyer of their choice to protect their rights and to assist in their defense. Additionally, access to the outside world is an essential safeguard against human rights abuses such as torture or ill-treatment\u2014vital to a fair trial. The right to a public hearing safeguards the fairness of the judicial process. None of these rights are granted the 23 political prisoners in Baku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Azerbaijan\u2019s appalling human rights record has been the subject of international concern and condemnation ever since it gained independence in 1991. Non-governmental organizations such as\u00a0Human Rights Watch<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amnesty International<\/a>, intergovernmental institutions such as the\u00a0European Court of Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0UN Human Rights Council<\/a>, and governments including the\u00a0U.S.<\/a>,\u00a0Canada<\/a>,\u00a0Germany<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0United Kingdom<\/a>\u00a0have all repeatedly blasted Azerbaijan\u2019s human rights failures. Some\u00a0200 political prisoners<\/a>, Azerbaijan\u2019s own citizens, have been detained arbitrarily and are subjected to torture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The independence of courts in Azerbaijan is highly questionable and their impartiality is doubtful at best. Hatred for Armenians has become state policy, with government officials\u00a0calling<\/a>\u00a0Armenians a \u201ccancerous tumor\u201d to be eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such a toxic environment, it is far-fetched to expect a fair trial for Vardanyan or any of the other Armenian prisoners in Baku\u2014but diplomatic observers at the trials could at least help mitigate some of the gross violations of the prisoners\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hrair Balian<\/strong> has practiced conflict resolution for the past 35 years in the Middle East, Africa, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. He has served in leadership positions with the UN, OSCE and the Carter Center.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hrair Balian Hrair Balian, who has worked for more than three decades in international conflict resolution, writes that the presence of diplomatic observers could restrain unfair practices underway in the prosecution of political prisoners from the Central Asian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was overrun by Azerbaijani forces in 2023. Hrair Balian, former director of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy","category-english","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1067,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}