Finally Understand, Criminals Are Punished, Not Negotiated With: Artsakh Human Rights Defender to the International Community

The Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, Gegham Stepanyan, has made a statement in which he stated: “The genocidal actions perpetrated against the Armenian population of Artsakh in the early 20th century, the 70 years of persecution following the annexation of Artsakh to Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921, the systematic discrimination and openly directed steps of ethnic hatred, the organized genocidal acts committed from 1988 onwards in Sumgait, Baku, Ganja-Kirovabad and other localities to force the Armenian population of Artsakh to abandon their free expression of will, the war imposed in the 1990s, the April 2016 aggression, the 44-day war filled with military crimes in 2020, and all the criminal actions of Azerbaijan’s military-political leadership since November 9, 2020, represent an attempt to nullify the collective measures taken by the international community over decades to prevent crimes of such magnitude since the Second World War.

Azerbaijan is openly and publicly providing a masterclass to the world on the destruction, deportation, and exile of a specific ethnic group, even refraining from making a condemning statement. This is why Azerbaijan is developing its arsenal and the tools and means for committing crimes almost every day. This is also why today the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, openly violating the provisions of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, dare to seize peaceful settlements, leaving 120,000 residents of Artsakh without heating and hot water, forcibly displacing them. This list can go on indefinitely. The cessation of gas supply and the resulting humanitarian disaster is something the Azerbaijani side is trying to frame as an internal matter, similar to claims made by the leadership of Nazi Germany during the Nuremberg trials to justify the mass crimes committed.

Esteemed representatives of the international community, the facts and evidence are more than sufficient to trigger the “Responsibility to Protect” norm designed to prevent and halt crimes against humanity and genocide, to recognize the Republic of Artsakh, and to save the Armenian population of Artsakh from ethnic cleansing and genocide. There is simply no other option; finally understand, criminals are punished, not negotiated with.”