On October 4, hearings on Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov’s case took place in the PACE. During the hearings, delegates of all countries, except for Turkey and Azerbaijan, underlined the impermissibility of the Azerbaijani murderer’s actions and condemned them and the Azerbaijani delegates claimed that pardoning the murderer “is the sovereign right of Azerbaijan.” In response to Aravot’s question why Azerbaijan continued to behave like that, in her opinion, Margarit Yesayan, a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) parliamentary group and the deputy chairman of the human rights protection and public affairs committee, said, “One shouldn’t be surprised, that country has none of the system of values that is called European and has none of the vision of human rights, which has been reached by the majority of European countries and which the Republic of Armenia longs for. I think that the first reason for that impudent behavior is that we have tolerated that behavior for quite a long time.
“When and in what situations hasn’t Azerbaijan behaved like that? It is its permanent condition and it is high time that we make an adequate response to it and answer our neighbor with a concrete position.
“By the way, I was quite happy about the words of Rudy Salles, the French member of the PACE. Mr. Salles reminded his European colleagues rather expressively during the discussions on the issue in the PACE that Safarov had struck 16 blows of an ax at the sleeping Armenian officer. The PACE member said addressing the Azerbaijani delegates that Azerbaijan had better stop its so-called ‘propaganda,’ ‘Listening to all your arguments, I ask myself whether Azerbaijan can continue to legitimately sit in this hall.’
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“I express my gratitude to the French member of the PACE for that sober and realistic approach of his. I think that our European colleagues must all do that and impose severe sanctions on Azerbaijan. It is already clear for the world that Azerbaijan has exhausted its arsenal and must be held accountable both to the international organizations and to the PACE.”
