Euljekian, 45, is a native of Lebanon who had moved to Nagorno-Karabakh and worked there as a taxi driver years before the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He and a Lebanese-Armenian friend, Maral Najarian, were detained by Azerbaijani forces outside the Karabakh town of Shushi (Shusha) on November 10, 2020, hours after a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the six-week war. They were both taken to Baku to face criminal charges denied by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Euljekian was accused of being a terrorist and mercenary and illegally entering Azerbaijan. Najarian risked similar accusations before being released and repatriated in March 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Euljekian, who has dual Armenian and Lebanese citizenship, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2021 after a short trial condemned by Armenia\u2019s government and human rights groups as a travesty of justice. His health has since been a cause for serious concern for his family and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Euljekian informed his Lebanese wife, Linda Iman, about his hunger strike when they last spoke by phone about a month ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe only said, \u2018Linda, it\u2019s me, Viken, I stopped eating 15 days ago,\u2019\u201d she told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iman said she has not heard from him since then and does not even know whether he is continuing the hunger strike. She noted Azerbaijani prison authorities told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday that her husband suffers from back pain but is otherwise in good shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m concerned because I can\u2019t believe anyone until I speak with my husband,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that the ICRC is lying or anything. I just want to speak with my husband to know if he is OK because I feel so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cViken is an innocent man,\u201d added Iman. \u201cHe has a family and must be freed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ICRC representatives were last allowed to visit Euljekian and the other Armenian prisoners in March. Around that time, Azerbaijan\u2019s government announced plans to close the Geneva-based organization\u2019s office in Baku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur dialogue with the Azerbaijani authorities is ongoing,\u201d said Zara Amatuni, the ICRC spokeswoman in Yerevan. \u201cWe will try to get an answer on this issue soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prisoners include eight former political and military leaders of Karabakh, who went on trial in January along with eight other Karabakh Armenians also captured during Azerbaijan\u2019s September 2023 military offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Armenian government criticized the \u201cmock trials\u201d in February after weeks of effective silence, condemned by its domestic critics. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claimed earlier that explicit condemnation of the trials would only harm the defendants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pashinian\u2019s detractors insisted that he is simply afraid of angering Baku. Some of them claim that he does not want the former Karabakh leaders, notably Armenian-born billionaire and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, to be freed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vardanyan went on a hunger strike in February in protest against the trials regarded by him as a \u201cfarce.\u201d He refused food for almost a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yerevan does not seem to have pushed for the release of the prisoners in its talks with Baku on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Artak Khulian<\/a> \/ Azatutyun.am<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The wife of Viken Euljekian, one of at least 23 Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, said on Friday that she fears for his life following a hunger strike reported by him recently. Euljekian, 45, is a native of Lebanon who had moved to Nagorno-Karabakh and worked there as a taxi driver years before the 2020 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1158,"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-1156","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\/1156","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=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}