ANNOUNCEMENTS

A group of Armenian civil society organizations, led by Open Society Foundations – Armenia, submitted a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calling for OHCHR’s intervention in relation to the ongoing aggression by Azerbaijan against Armenia.

“Specifically, we request the deployment of a fact-finding mission to investigate violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the two-day attack Azerbaijan launched against Armenia, in the sovereign territory of the latter. In addition, we request a longer-term monitoring mission along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan as a preventive measure for further use of force and human rights abuses”, says the letter, signed by Armenian NGOs.

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Protests that erupted in Kazakhstan on 2 January 2022 against the spike in liquefied gas price spread across the country and turned into a national movement against the dictatorial regime. According to official information, more than 300 people have been injured, and several dozen police officers and protesters have died. Hundreds of protesters have been detained without basic human rights guarantees. A state of emergency was declared in a number of towns of the country and State of Alma-Ata.

Since the adoption on 9 November 2020 of the ceasefire statement by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia, the Azerbaijani aggression along the border with Armenia has not ceased. Azerbaijani armed forces have illegally invaded into and positioned themselves inside Armenia’s sovereign territory, regularly shooting at several Armenian towns and villages, disturbing the inhabitants’ peace and daily lives, posing a real threat to the life and health of the civilian population, inflicting harm to their property, attempting to illegally detain civilians, threatening with firearms, stealing livestock, and committing a number of other criminal acts.

The secrecy surrounding foreign policy processes has often created challenges for the Republic of Armenia and its statehood. This vicious practice must be put to an end; henceforth, any Government or political party must not bypass the people and accept momentous and irreversible decisions based on narrow personal or group interests. Regarding the delimitation and demarcation of borders, these can only be considered legal through the inclusion of United Nations and OSCE representatives, in accordance with legal processes enshrined in international legal norms.

Since May 12, 2021, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan have intruded into the internationally recognized territory of the Republic of Armenia in violation of the state border and the UN Charter, infiltrating as deep as 3.5 kilometers in some sections. The fact that the mentioned territory is an indisputable part of the Republic of Armenia is confirmed not only by the information published by the official Yerevan, but also by the evidence-based publications of independent media.

We condemn the pre-election persecutions of political opponents and their supporters; violations during early voting and election day as reported by citizen observers, including arbitrary detention of observers and obstruction of their work; falsification of results; the post-election arrests, as well as disproportionate and unjustified use of force by the police that cost at least one life and left several people injured.