APPEAL of the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the military provocation of the Armenian armed forces, which resulted in another loss of life on September 21 - International Day of Peace

Ensuring peace and security is one of the most important factors for the reliable protection of human rights and freedoms at the international and domestic levels. Today, peace becomes a global challenge in the world and growing confrontations between countries, religions and civilizations, ongoing conflicts and emerging hotbeds of war against the background of protection of the states’ sovereignty and the promotion of coexistence directly impedes ensuring peace.

At present, because of such armed conflicts and wars, millions of people, including children, women, the elderly, and people with disabilities, are being expelled from their native places. Armenia's policy of aggression and ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan as an obstacle to the peace process is a constant threat to stability and security in the region.

As a result of Armenia’s military aggression in connection with the ongoing territorial claims against Azerbaijan lasting for more than 30 years, along with servicemen, civilians were also killed, and people’s rights to life, property, freedom of movement and others were grossly violated. This aggression has resulted in the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan, namely Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Azerbaijanis, the expulsion of more than one million of our compatriots from their native lands and the mass violation of their human rights.

Despite the declaration of a ceasefire regime between Armenia and Azerbaijan since 1994 and the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, regular violations of the ceasefire by Armenian armed forces in different directions of the frontline, mass fires, damage to civilians and settlements by firing on border villages with various kinds of weapons, as well as taking hostage of civil population pose a threat to human life.

We have to state with regret that the Armenian armed forces once again violated the ceasefire in the direction of Tovuz on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border at 09:20 am on September 21, the date adopted by the UN General Assembly and celebrated by the world community as the International Day of Peace, and Mammadov Elshan Ali oglu, a serviceman of the Azerbaijani Army, was killed, and another soldier, Gurbanov Gurban Azad oglu, was wounded.

All these result in a serious violation of the provisions of international instruments on the protection of civilians - children, women, the elderly, people with disabilities in times of military conflict, including the UN Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols. The continuation of such cases, creating numerous precedents of impunity, creates conditions for new crimes against humanity and endangers the civilian population.

UN Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of 1993 must be implemented; the requirements of the UN General Assembly Resolution "On the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan" dated March 14, 2008, which provides for the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, must be fulfilled; the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be resolved on the basis of norms and principles of the international law. 

Armenia displays the ignorance to peace and security, assimilates our existing cultural heritage in the occupied territories, our rare historical monuments are being ruthlessly destroyed, which has a negative impact on maintaining peace.

From this standpoint, 

Emphasizing the importance of decisive measures to strengthen the universal peace among the main tasks of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and other international organizations, the settlement of conflicts, which could lead to the violation of peace, by peaceful means in a fair way and in accordance with international law;

Noting the inevitability of punishment for gross violations of international and humanitarian law,

Putting forward an initiative to mobilize all opportunities to eliminate the consequences of the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, restoration of territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognized borders, and thereby ensuring lasting peace and security in the region;

Considering the important role of fair peace and mutual understanding in the effective implementation of the obligations arising from the UN Sustainable Development Goals,
 

We call on the world community and influential international organizations to support stability and the peace building processes, to support Azerbaijan’s rightful position in the just and peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, to assist in the restoration of the territorial integrity of our country by taking decisive steps for the speedy and peaceful liberation of our lands occupied by the Armenian armed forces.
 

Sabina Aliyeva

Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman)

of the Republic of Azerbaijan 

September 21, 2020

This Appeal is addressed to the UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Office of High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Human Rights Council, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, European Union, European Council, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International and European Ombudsman Institutions, Asian Ombudsman Association, Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Ombudsman Association of its member states, Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, European Network of Ombudspersons for Children, International Peace Bureau, different ombudsmen and national human rights institutions, embassies of the Republic of Azerbaijan in foreign countries and the foreign embassies in Azerbaijan, as well as to the Azerbaijani Diasporas.