The direct
responsibilities for the discovery and return from captivity of our compatriots
taken captive by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and missing persons, as well as
for conducting negotiations on behalf of the Republic of Armenia lies with the
Armenian Government and its relevant bodies.
It is the direct
reasonability of the Government to carry out the coordination of work with
concrete actions for reaching real results on this matter aimed at ensuring the
necessary dialogues with the families of the captive and missing persons, as
well as with the public at large, and updating them.
The Human Rights Defender
specifically informs everyone that he is not entitled with the rights to return
the captives, to find the missing persons, and to control the border roads from
Armenia to Artsakh. On these issues the competence to conduct negotiations or
hold official discussions, and to initiate proceedings before international
judicial institution, including the European Court of Human Rights, lies with
the Armenian Government and its bodies.
Despite of the legal
restrictions and taking into account the fact that it is the legal duty of the
Human Rights Defender to assist in this process, since September 27 the
Defender has conducted an immense volume of work round the clock with a small
staff, and is continuing that work, using the full potential of its
international connections. Specifically:
1. Documenting facts, as
evidence, through recording the atrocities of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces
against our captive compatriots with the necessary description and elaboration.
2. Translating of all the
videos from Turkish and Azerbaijani into Russian and English with the support
of the specialists from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State
University. The subtitles are attached to the videos; the photos are processed
in the same way.
3. Analyzing each photo
and video, and registering the violations of the specific requirements of
international law.
4. Preparing special
reports and statements using the mentioned photos and videos and their analyses
based on the specific days.
5. Sending reports and
separate statements to international intergovernmental and non-governmental
organizations, including international judicial institutions, the UN and the
CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, all Members of the CoE, OSCE, EU
Parliaments, international media, etc. The reports and statements are also sent
to the competent state bodies of the Republic of Armenia.
6. Presenting and
discussing all the cases of the return of our compatriots, the cases of Azerbaijani
atrocities with the ambassadors of other countries and international
institutions in Armenia.
7. Remaining in constant
contact with the families of the captives.
8. Carrying out permanent
work with lawyers who are lodging applications before the European Court of
Human Rights. They are provided with all the evidences.
9. Preserving constant
contact with the Permanent Representative of Armenia to the European Court of
Human Rights.
The issue of the captives
and the missing persons has recently become a matter of intentionally organized
and inadmissible speculation on social networks; the lack of information on
missing persons and bringing our compatriots back from captivity is an attempt
to cover up the obvious shortcomings of the government's work, and an attempt
to downplay the work of the Armenian Human Rights Defender causing obvious
obstacles to that work.
These are the groups on
social networks that became organized immediately after the war activities.
The Human Rights
Defender’s targeted independent monitoring shows that the purpose of this
condemnable campaign of fake pages is to abuse the public emotions, and engage
as many real users as possible; those who are genuinely concerned about the
fate of our captive or missing compatriots, thereby concealing the lack of
coordinated action by the Government to ensure a real result.
The study of the work
done by the state bodies in relation to the captives and missing persons show
that:
1. There is an urgent
need to organize the coordinated work of the Government, as directly
responsible for the negotiations in this regard, to achieve real results.
2. The only state body
that functions properly in this area is the Armenian representation to the ECHR
and its professional staff, to whom the reports of the Human Rights Defender
are transferred. Objectively, this body cannot deal with all issues.
3. The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has the authority in this area, who is
working actively, also the Human Rights Defender is working effectively with
the latter.
Therefore, the government
should immediately start coordinated work related to the return of captives and
finding missing persons based on the mentioned principles, at the same time,
ensuring proper dialogue with the public, especially the families, and its
awareness.
The Human Rights Defender
demands from the organizers of inadmissible manipulation of fake pages on
social networks to immediately stop these absolutely inadmissible, condemnable
actions.
The Defender draws the
attention of the Armenian law enforcement agencies to the acts of criminal
nature and to the urgent need for their prevention.
The Human Rights Defender
calls on all our compatriots not to engage in discussions with fake users
because there is a specifically organized manipulative game on the public
emotions. Evidence of this is the fact that our young people, who were captured
in Azerbaijan before the hostilities, are never mentioned.
This organized propaganda
also harms the issue of the return of the captives because these works are of
special nature and require professional approaches, systematic work around the
clock, without unnecessary emotion and public rumor.
The Human Rights Defender
is continuously working 24 hours to protect the rights of persons who appeared
in captivity at different times, to support the process of their return or
detection based on an equal approach in all areas of human rights.
Հայերեն
