in Russian – https://aga-tribunal.info/ombudsman-4-2-2022/
On February 2, 2022 Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan published on the web site and on February 4 presented in the press-conference an evidence-based emergency report on the new developments and dangers of the Azerbaijani state-sanctioned Armenophobic policy in the post-war period.
Brief about the press-conference and video
https://aga-tribunal.info/en/tatoyan-4-2-2022-en/
Full title and text of the AD HOC public report
THE AZERBAIJANI POLICY OF HATRED AND ANIMOSITY TOWARDS ARMENIANS AS ROOT CAUSES OF ETHNICALLY MOTIVATED VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS: EVIDENCE-BASED ANALYSIS OF THE POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS
There are 59 pages in the Report. Full text is at https://ombuds.am/images/files/3101f60c869b0f378dbc737b002e5054.pdf
Comment by Arman Tatoyan
Arman Tatoyan wrote this comment in Facebook on February 6, 2022.
“The Azerbaijani authorities are inciting religious enmity at the state level, accusing us of Islamophobia with absolute falsehood.
How, for example, can they explain the famous Decree of the founder of Islam, Muhammad, which he adopted in 626AD after the visit of the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem Abraham and his 40 delegates, and by this he extended his protection to the Holy Tomb of Christ, churches and monasteries in “Jerusalem, Damascus and Arab regions”, including the St. Hakobyants Monastery in Jerusalem, educational institutions and property. It was preserved later.
Historical facts prove the respect of our people, as well as the respect of the Armenian Church for Islam and other religions, starting from the countries with Islam.
With many peoples of the Islamic world Armenians have lived as friends for centuries.
This policy of the Azerbaijani authorities incites hostility towards Armenians living in countries where they profess Islam. This incites enmity between nations.
In Artsakh, for example, the Upper and Inner Mosques of Shushi remained standing and preserved, the Upper Mosque and the building of the madrasa, a caring school, were completely renovated, and a park was built. There is a functioning mosque in Yerevan.
Instead, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed and desecrated the Ghazanchetsots և Kanach Zham churches in Shushi, destroyed the Zoravor Surb Astvatsatsin Church in Mekhakavan in Artsakh, or desecrated the St. Yeghishe Church in Mataghis, destroyed Armenian khachkars in Shush, Hadrut. The St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church in Baku has been desecrated, turned into a library archive, the cross has been lowered from the dome, there is no tabernacle, the tombstones that were adjacent to the church have been destroyed.
Currently, everything is being done at the state level to change the belonging of Armenian churches and monasteries.
This policy is already manifested in the new forms of torture of Armenian captives with regard to their religion.
Therefore, these Azerbaijani statements are absolutely false, they have political motives, and are very dangerous for peace.
All these facts are presented in details in this report of the RA Human Rights Defender published 2 days ago and in this press conference.”
Content of the Report
INTRODUCTION……….3
I. AZERBAIJANI STATE POLICY OF ORGANIZED HATRED AND ANIMOSITY AGAINST ARMENIANS…………6
II. HATRED SPREAD BY THE PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN ……19
III. HATRED AND ANIMOSITY TOWARDS ARMENIANS AS A POLITICAL
TOOL AND ITS INFLUENCE IN THE SOCIETY ….…25
IV. INCITEMENT OF HATRED TOWARDS ARMENIANS ON RELIGIOUS
GROUND …..….35
V. STATE-PERPETRATED POLICY OF RACISM THAT HAS RESULTED IN
ACTS OF MILITARY PERSONNEL AND CIVILIANS……49
VI. THE SPILL OVER OF RACIAL HATRED PURSUED BY THE
AZERBAIJANI GOVERNMENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPHERE …….52
Introduction in the Report
Pages 3-5.
Monitoring and evidence-based analyses, fact-finding missions of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender’s Office have previously confirmed that the Azerbaijani policy of state-supported Armenophobia and enmity have become root causes of gross and massive human rights violations and ethnically motivated crimes by the Azerbaijani armed servicemen.
Yearly reports by the European Comission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and recently, the decision of the International Court of Justice [1] (ICJ) are a further proof of the true reach of the government-administrated vilification of Armenians.
This policy is the true depiction of the current state of the struggle for peace. As long as there is no strong commitment (moreover, state-supported active policy of hatred) towards eradicating racism and rolling back the effects of a continued decades-long tradition of devilification of Armenians and the Armenian nation, solutions for peace will never be long-lasting.
The International Community needs to take immediate action towards counteracting state-perpetuated hatred amongst member states of the United Nations, especially amongst those with large diasporal
representations, so as prevent further violations and promote respect for human dignity.
Direct consequences of the mentioned policies are human rights violations (massive and gross). Vivid examples of consequences of these policies are atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces in September-November 2020, the 2016 April war and other attacks of Azerbaijani servicemen (including border guards) aimed at innocent Armenians.
The Human Rights Defender of Armenia documented numerous cases of willful killings and brutal torture of Armenian servicemen and civilians, acting with open faces and with no consideration of the responsibility and reprehensibility for the acts committed out even thinking about responsibility, being confident that they would only be applauded for their actions. There is also widespread information in mass media and social networks. In addition, there have been multiple reported cases of indiscriminate attacks of innocent Armenian civilians by Azerbaijani servicemen since the end of active battles of the latest Artsakh war on 10 November, 2020.
One of the creadible documents showing the existence of the state-sponsored hatred and Armenophobia is the 2020 joint evidence-based report of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia and the Human
Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh “On organized hate speech and animosity towards ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan as root causes of ethnically-based torture and inhuman treatment by Azerbaijani armed forces” [2].
This report has documented application/existence of systemic Armenophobia by public authorities, including high-ranking officials and public figures (amongst others cultural and sports representatives) of Azerbaijan, as well as widespread hate speech amongst the general public.
It clearly proves the Azerbaijani policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide through terroristic methods in Artsakh.
The results of Azerbaijani state supported hatred against ethnic Armenians were also revealed during the outbreak of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on April 2016. Within his ad hoc reports, the Ombudsman of Artsakh in cooperation with the Human Rights Defender of Armenia presented Azerbaijani’s hatred policy towards people of Armenian ethnicity and its horrific consequences, including beheading, torture, and mutilation of combatants’ and civilians’ dead bodies, as well as indiscriminate shelling of civilian objects, and more [3].
Reports and objective evidence have shown that while committing the torture of Armenians, live beheadings, mutilating the bodies of the victims, cutting ears, and committing other atrocities, the servicemen of the Azerbaijani Armed forces use the same rhetoric and expressions as the political authorities of Azerbaijan, starting from the President.
The continuous monitoring of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender’s Office has revealed that the policy of Armenophobia after the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war is still being promoted and encouraged by the Azerbaijani authorities and continuously substantiated by new developments in more extremist forms. The most significant recent development is the intensification of the hatred spread in the religious realm. Evidence suggests that rather than roll-back, the government of Azerbaijan is expanding on its policies of intolerance and discrimination.
The Human Rights Defender’s Office has studied and singled out the materials from their primary sources in Azerbaijani. All the evidence of hatred and animosity towards Armenians presented in this report is not meant to be exhaustive or is not meant to cover all cases of Armenophobia in Azerbaijan.
The primary reasoning behind writing the current report is the fact that Azerbaijani state-coordinated policies and the spill-over incidents that have breached the rights of Armenian citizens henceforth directly interfering with the primary duty of the Human Rights Defenders Office of Armenia – namely to protect Armenian citizens from gross violations of their rights, with no distinction as to the origin of perpetrators.
The purpose of the monitoring activities by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia have been to document the evidences of the state-supported policy of Armenophobia and show that the main reason and source of the violations of the rights of the Armenians by the Azerbaijani armed forces is
policy that has reached levels of fascism [4].
This report shows that this is not only about rhetorics or words used but about a long-standing institutional policy that have been implemeneted in real life (science, education, culture, sport, etc.).
For the Azerbaijani authorities, anti-Armenianism is a domestic and foreign policy tool, a source of nourishment. It is a deliberate policy of keeping one’s own people in Armenophobia in order to divert them from their internal state problems.
This is a policy full of jeopardising perils of perpetuating hostility between the peoples of the two countries and not only in the region, but also worldwide. Not only do these actions violate the basic principles of international law and undermine the entire international system of human rights, but is also a threat to the democracies and human rights of those countries where Armenians and Azerbaijanis live. The policy aims at maintaining the enmity between the two people around the world.
1 See the official decision available at: https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/180/180-20211207-ORD-01-00-
EN.pdf (07 December 2021).
2 Ad Hoc Public Report is available in English at
https://www.ombuds.am/images/files/2032f021fe81176414a649d588ad0e86.pdf
3 Artsakh ombudsman: “Interim public report on atrocities committed by Azerbaijani military forces against the civilian population of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and servicemen of the Nagorno Karabakh Defence Army on 2-5 April 2016, https://artsakhombuds.am/ru/document/560
4 Roger Griffin, one of the most prominent scholars on fascism defines it as “a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism”, palingenetic meaning ‘rebirth’. See R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London, 1991).