SYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has welcomed a powerful letter from the New South Wales Member for Davidson, Mr Matt Cross MP, who pledged to sponsor Mr Davit Ishkhanyan \u2014 the former Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) \u2014 and called for the immediate release of all Armenian hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his letter addressed to the Azerbaijani Charg\u00e9 d’Affaires, Mr Vagif Jafarov, Mr Cross stated: \u201cIn my capacity as the Member for Davidson, I have taken the decision to personally sponsor the Armenian political leader Mr Davit Ishkhanyan, former President of the National Assembly of Artsakh, who is currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cross\u2019s letter highlights Azerbaijan\u2019s long-standing record of mistreatment and human rights abuse towards their political prisoners, stating that: \u201cI met with a former political prisoner of Azerbaijan, Mr Alexander Lapshin, who detailed the extreme abuse and mistreatment he received whilst imprisoned in Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Mr Ishkhanyan\u2019s protection sponsor, Mr Cross formally requested regular updates on the detainee\u2019s physical and mental health, aiming to improve transparency around the conditions of Armenian hostages held in Baku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ANC-AU praised Mr Cross for his vocal support of Artsakh\u2019s former political leaders and expressed the Armenian-Australian community\u2019s gratitude for his continued support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMr Cross is now the fourth legislator from New South Wales to join the growing list of Australian politicians demanding transparency and justice from the Aliyev regime by personally sponsoring Armenian political prisoners held in Baku,\u201d said ANC-AU Executive Director, Mr Michael Kolokossian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kolokossian continued, \u201cOur community is deeply grateful for the principled stand taken by our elected representatives. However, the fight is far from over. The international community must act urgently to hold the Aliyev regime accountable, or risk enabling its ongoing genocidal policies against Armenians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cross joins a growing group of New South Wales parliamentarians \u2014 including Susan Carter MLC, Hugh McDermott MP (Prospect), and Tim James MP (Willoughby) \u2014 who have also written to the Azerbaijani Charg\u00e9 d\u2019Affaires, calling for transparency regarding the treatment of Armenian hostages and their immediate release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has welcomed a powerful letter from the New South Wales Member for Davidson, Mr Matt Cross MP, who pledged to sponsor Mr Davit Ishkhanyan \u2014 the former Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) \u2014 and called for the immediate release of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1340,"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-1339","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\/1339","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=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1341,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/1341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freearmenianhostages.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}