The Number of Prisoners Held in Azerbaijan is Higher Than Acknowledged by Authorities

Today, I submitted an official letter to the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, the Council of Europe, and the UN Human Rights Commissioner, along with additional data on the urgency of repatriating prisoners from Azerbaijan, the real situation of prisoners and missing persons, and the protection of their families' rights. This was stated by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on his Facebook page.

“In the letter, I emphasized that there is a current armed conflict. From the perspective of international humanitarian law, this means that regardless of whether they were captured after the November 9, 2020 trilateral statement, they are status-wise prisoners and must be released immediately. This issue is being artificially delayed through blatant abuses of legal processes, presenting them as terrorists and holding them in captivity, in violation of international norms, using them as a punishment. Meanwhile, this is a universal requirement for immediate international action. On the contrary, it grossly violates international human rights requirements and international humanitarian law, including the Third Geneva Convention of 1949. The release and repatriation of prisoners must be viewed strictly within the framework of human rights and humanitarian processes.

The findings and results of investigations by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia continually confirm that the Azerbaijani authorities are artificially delaying the release of Armenian prisoners, in gross violation of international requirements, and intentionally concealing the actual number of prisoners. This policy violates the rights of prisoners, causes mental suffering to the families of prisoners and the missing, and creates tension in the Armenian society.

The evidence collected by the Human Rights Defender's staff confirms that the number of prisoners held in Azerbaijan is higher than acknowledged by Azerbaijani authorities. This also pertains to the return of prisoners before the 2020 war.

The absolute urgency of the issue of prisoner release must also be viewed in the context of the state-sponsored policies of hatred and enmity towards Armenians that continue to be propagated at the state level. Therefore, taking into account the humanitarian mandates and roles of the mentioned international bodies in the protection of human rights (with a priority on the right to life), additional data was presented to them by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia as an independent institution regarding the actual situation, raising the urgent need for decisive measures towards the release and return of prisoners and for stopping the politicization of the problem,” stated the Human Rights Defender.