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Azerbaijani Ombudsman makes video appeal to the international community regarding Khojaly genocide - VIDEO

26 February 2021 11:59 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijani Ombudsman Sabina Aliyeva has made a video appeal to the international community regarding the 29th anniversary of Khojaly genocide, APA reports.

The video appeal reads:

“I am, Sabina Aliyeva, the Commissioner for Human Rights of Azerbaijan.

Today, Azerbaijan commemorates the 29th anniversary of one of the bloodiest tragedies in the history of humanity. On night from February 25 to 26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces and terrorist groups attacked armless, innocent civilians in Khojaly town of Azerbaijan. As a result of this attack 613 people, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly, were murdered with special cruelty. It was committed with an aim of ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijanis.

The crimes against and attacks on civil population on national, racial, ethnic and religious grounds, regardless of where they occur, are considered as crimes against humanity. The relevant documents adopted by the parliaments of Mexico, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala and several others have recognized the mass annihilation committed in Khojaly as an act of genocide. Parliaments of Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Jordan, Slovenia, Scotland and Paraguay, as well as the executive and legislative bodies of 22 states of the United States of America have strongly condemned the Khojaly tragedy qualifying it as a massacre.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation recognized Armenia as an aggressor and the Khojaly tragedy as genocide. The nature and gravity of the crimes committed in Khojaly, intentional, mass extermination of the civilians only because of their ethnic belonging constitutes a crime of genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 29 years have passed since the genocide, but as a result of indifference and double standards to the tragedy, no political and legal assessment was given to this fact yet.

Bearing in mind that there can be no long-term and sustainable peace without justice and paying tribute to the memory of innocent people slaughtered in Khojaly, I call on the international community to condemn and recognize this crime against humanity as a genocide, and to increase efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible."