There is a strong influx of lawsuits from Azerbaijan into the European Court of Human Rights. Azerbaijan makes the best of the factor of refugees. According to Tigran Ter-Yesayan, the director of Forum, a human rights center, Armenia will be subpoenaed to the European Court soon and will have to defend itself. What do we – more than a million refugees who have been forced to flee to Armenia from the territories occupied by Azerbaijan – do? According to Tigran Ter-Yesayan, “Not only we occupied territories, in Oskanian’s words, but also Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan should accept all our occupied territories starting from Artsvashen. If we talk about territorial integrity and the right to self-determination, then those are different things. Azerbaijan conquered our territories. It was encroachment on our territorial integrity. Self-determination is Artsakh’s problem; therefore, let them apply to the state of Artsakh regarding that issue. We are not entitled to defend Artsakh against Azerbaijan as a respondent in the ECHR. If they want us to be a respondent, let them acknowledge Artsakh as a party and let Artsakh, as such, go and defend itself in the ECHR. The Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan are members of the Council of Europe. Our refugees should sue Azerbaijan. Every refugee of the Republic of Armenia who lives in the Republic of Armenia can file a petition in the European Court.” Tigran Ter-Yesayan says that we already have a precedent in the European Court – our refugees v. Azerbaijan. There are petitions from refugees of Artsvashen, Khojalu, and Shahumyan. My colleague Anna Israelyan wrote about the cases Chiragov and Others v. Armenia and Minas Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan considered in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as early as a few years ago. She informed regarding the latter case that before 1992, the petitioner of Armenian decent had lived in the village of Gulistan, district of Shahumyan bordering on the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, had had a two-story house and land. The petitioner informed the European Court that prior to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 82% of Shahumnyan’s population had been ethnic Armenians, that because of forced displacement and actions of the Azeri government Article 8 (respect for family and private life), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), and Article 14 (non-discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated. He fell victim to ethnic and religious discrimination, as all Armenians living in Azerbaijan. So the emphasis was on the articles of the European Convention, which the Azeri petitioners try to use against us today. As opposed to the Azeri refugees who left Armenia, taking everything with them, our refugees from Sumgayit, Baku… were subjected to torture, murdered, burned alive, without
compensation, losing everything, a part of them barely managed to flee to Armenia. Tigran Ter-Yesayan says that this will be the touchstone of 2013. The start of the fight for international law is signaled.
RUZAN MINASYAN
Aravot Daily
