Media Statement of the Ombudsman Institution

Regarding the allegations spread by some online media about renting a plane for 30,000 manats by the Ombudsman, we would like to inform you that the information provided does not reflect the truth and aims to overshadow the Ombudsman’s activity that aimed at always conveying human rights reforms implemented at the national level and the crimes committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan.

This must be noted that to investigate Armenia’s war crimes committed against Azerbaijan and crimes against humanity on the spot, site visits by delegations of international organizations are conducted in the liberated areas of Azerbaijan in the framework of the continuous policy pursued by the state.  

We would like to note that in support of this policy, the Ombudsman Office of Azerbaijan informs the world community about Armenia's crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes and terrorism, as well as violent military attacks on civilians and civilian objects committed either during the 44-day war and post-war periods were selected as one of the priority areas.

For this reason, the Ombudsman Sabina Aliyeva and international delegations visited Azerbaijan at her invitation, carried out fact-finding missions, as well as constantly issued reports, statements, and public appeals. These documents addressed to the international community, including mission reports, prepared based on the findings identified by human rights institutions of other countries have a great role in exposure of Armenia’s crimes against our people.   

Furthermore, during the dates indicated in that information, a joint international conference on the 20th anniversary of the Ombudsman Office of Azerbaijan was held by the Ombudsman Institution, the Parliament, and TURKPA with the participation of the ombudsmen of Turkic States, the heads of the national human rights institutions (NHRIs)  and parliamentarians. The journalists participated in the events and the relevant information was broadly published in the media.    

On the 24th of May, during that conference, site visits by the ombudsmen of the TURKPA Member States to the liberated Fuzuli and Shusha city, the cultural capital of Azerbaijan, in order to get acquainted with various crimes committed by Armenia against our country. The Ombudsman broadly informed the guests about the destructions, mine threats, and crimes of ecocide during that visit.

As was indicated in that information, the visit was carried out by the Baku-Fuzuli-Baku flight. The broad delegation visiting our country was used for this flight, along with other conference participants.  

It becomes clear that it is unrealistic to visit the destroyed city of Fizuli for personal purposes. However, unfortunately, some journalists instead of conveying all these issues to the world community by performing their professional duties in good faith, they are engaged in such a biased smear campaign.

So, we do recommend to the mass media outlets to avoid publishing such biased and ungrounded information.

Summing up, we would like to note that the Azerbaijani Ombudsman will further continue to perform all duties given to her with honor.