WCC News: Calls for release of Armenian hostages held by Azerbaijan growing in lead-up to COP29

The fate of Armenian detainees in Azerbaijan was focus of the side event at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 1 October, featuring leading advocates and human rights lawyers representing the detainees.

A year since the Armenian population was forced to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, at least 23 ethnic Armenians – possibly as many as 100 – remain in detention by the government of Azerbaijan, despite international calls for their release.

Speakers at the side event emphasized that Armenian detainees in Azerbaijan have been denied their legal rights under international human rights law, noting that the abuse and mistreatment of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijani detention is well documented. They highlighted the forthcoming 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to be hosted by Azerbaijan in Baku on 11-22 November 2024 as a key opportunity for advocacy and action on this issue.

Siranush Sahakyan, a human rights lawyer representing Armenian detainees before the European Court of Human Rights and the UN human rights mechanisms, stated that legal proceedings against Armenian detainees in Azerbaijan often fail to meet international fair trial standards, and were marked by a lack of impartiality and independence.

“Forward to COP29 we urge to raise this unresolved humanitarian issue and pressure Azerbaijan to release all Armenian hostages. Without resolution of humanitarian issues there can be no trust in peacebuilding,” said Sahakyan.

The year since 120,000 Armenians were forced to flee their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh also has been a year of “systematic destruction of Armenian Christian heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh and erasure and denial of long-lasting Armenian presence,” said Thibault van den Bossche, advocacy officer at the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ).

As stated in a recent ECLJ report, since Azerbaijan took complete control of Nagorno-Karabakh following a military offensive in September 2023, the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage has accelerated. It is important that the international community takes the growing impunity surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh very seriously, said Gurgen Petrossian, head of the International Criminal Law research group at the Friedrich-Alexander University. “Each unpunished international crime increases the risk of repetition of the wave of violence.”

Peter Prove, WCC director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, underscored the importance of the side event “as one means of calling the attention of the international community to the serious unresolved humanitarian and human rights issues following Azerbaijan’s forcible seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its Armenian population from the land that had been their home for thousands of years.” 

Prove observed that Azerbaijan “has avidly exploited its presidency of COP29 to burnish its reputation in the international community. However, the better way to enhance its reputation would be to release the Armenian prisoners it still holds, to respect international humanitarian and human rights law, and to stop the erasure of Armenian cultural and religious heritage in the territory it controls.” The event was hosted by Christian Solidarity International and co-sponsored by the European Centre for Law and Justice, Armenian Assembly of America, Armenian Constitutional Right-Protective Centre, Armenian Relief Society, and World Council of Churches.