ArmInfo. Artsakh ombudsman Artak Beglaryan made a statement in connection with the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Armenians in Sumgait, organized in February 1988 by Azerbaijan. This was reported to ArmInfo in the press service of the Artsakh Ombudsman’s office.
Thus, in his statement, Beglaryan recalled that after a peaceful rally held in Artsakh in February 1988, demanding reunification with Armenia, on 27-29 February in Sumgayit, the authorities of Soviet Azerbaijan organized and massacred the Armenian population, accompanied by special cruelty, torture, maiming, burning of living and already killed people, group rape. According to him, 18,000 Armenians of Sumgait were subjected to violence only because of their nationality, as a result of which the rights of Armenians to life, to protection from torture and discrimination, to freedom and security, to property, to a fair trial, and many other rights.
“The massacre of Armenians in Sumgait was organized at the state level, as evidenced by many facts. During the rallies before the mass pogroms, the city authorities pushed the gathered crowd into open violence, which in the following days turned into violent actions against the Armenians in accordance with the lists of addresses prepared in advance There are numerous facts and evidence that the Azerbaijani police not only were completely inactive, but also in many cases assisted and directed groups of homicides. Although the city of Sumgait was only 25 kilometers from the capital Baku, the Soviet army intervened and stopped the massacre only three days later. In 1988, the Prosecutor General of the Azerbaijan SSR, Ilyas Ismailov, declared: “The perpetrators who incited people to pogroms (in Sumgait) are they sit in the Milli Mejlis (in the Azerbaijani parliament), carrying deputy mandates in their pockets “(source: Zerkalo newspaper, Azerbaijan, February 21, 2003),” the Artsakh human rights defender recalled. Beglaryan also stated that the authorities of Azerbaijan and the USSR made every effort to hide the main cases of the killings, officially presenting only the names of 26 victims. “On the events that took place, the European Parliament adopted on July 7, 1988, a resolution condemning the mass slaughter of Armenians in Azerbaijan, which reads:” Taking into account the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh has historically been a part of Armenia, more than 80% of its population are Armenians the region was annexed by Azerbaijan in 1923, that in February 1988 the Armenians suffered from the atrocities committed in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait;
Considering the fact that the deterioration of the political situation that led to the massacres of Armenians in Sumgait and the murders in Baku is dangerous for Armenians living in Azerbaijan (the European Parliament) condemns the atrocities and violence committed against Armenians who expressed disagreement in Azerbaijan “In addition, the Nobel Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov noted:” If before someone doubted that Nagorno-Karabakh should belong to Azerbaijan, after this tragedy no one has the moral right to say that he should ” full-time: open letter to M. Gorbachev, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, 10.27 / 1992).
More detailed facts and comments on the Sumgait massacre can be found on the website karabakhrecords.info “,” Beglaryan said in a statement. According to him, the crime against humanity organized in Sumgait was a response to the peaceful demonstrations of the Artsakh Armenians aimed at realizing the rights of peoples self-determination. “In addition, the Azerbaijani authorities, having the example of an Armenian-populated Nakhchivan, continued to pursue their policy of ethnic cleansing of Armenians, which was particularly intensified after the Sumgayit events. In the framework of this policy, from 1988 to the 1990s, in the Azerbaijani cities of Kirovabad, Baku and a number of other cities, as well as in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, thousands of people were killed and about 500 people were forcibly resettled with the consent of the USSR authorities. 000 Armenians. In subsequent years (including during the Azerbaijani-Karabakh war of 1991-1994), Azerbaijan continued the policy of ethnic cleansing of Armenians, which, according to our analysis, fully complies with the legal wording of the genocide established by the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide and punishing him. ”
Moreover, our studies show that in addition to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians of Azerbaijan, their rights to property, free movement and a number of other rights continue to be violated, and many still bear the physical, psychological and material consequences of this policy, “he stressed Beglaryan. The Artsakh Ombudsman reminded that the crimes committed so far have not received an appropriate legal assessment and in fact go unpunished, one of the consequences of which is currently being held I’m Azerbaijan’s official policy of Armenian hatred. According to him, not only the former Armenian population of Azerbaijan and citizens of the Artsakh Republic (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), but also all Armenians, as well as foreigners visiting Artsakh continue to fall victim to this policy.Beglaryan pointed out that the active stage of manifestation of Armenian phobia in Azerbaijani society was recorded in April 2016, during the period of large-scale attacks by Azerbaijan on Artsakh. “In 2016, within the framework of his fact-finding mission, the Human Rights Defender presented a special report on killings, beheading, torture and other cases of war crimes and human rights violations against civilians and Artsakh military personnel. It is noteworthy that the Azerbaijani military the crimes were subsequently rewarded and rewarded by the Azerbaijani authorities, “Beglaryan said in a statement.In this regard, the Artsakh Ombudsman called on the international community to give a proper legal assessment of the violence committed in Sumgait in February 1988, in accordance with the fundamental principles and norms of international law, as well as to take effective measures to end the anti-Armenian policy. “This path of racial hatred not only contradicts the well-known principles of international law, but also increasingly alienates two peoples from resolving the conflict and establishing a stable peace,” the human rights defender concluded.
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