Ruben Melikyan, the Ombudsman of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh held a press conference in European Parliament. In his speech, he referred to the April war and Azerbaijan’s atrocities: “For us, for citizens of Artsakh Republic is very important to be heard by our European partners. Taking into account the lack of Europe in Artsakh and lack of opportunities to speak on our human rights issues. My mandate is human rights, so I won’t cover any political issue”
According to Ruben Melikyan, even if the country is not recognized its people cannot be denied and human rights should be taken into account: “We have very productive meetings today in European Parliament with the members of European Parliament. I presented my recent report on Azerbaijan’s atrocities during April war in 2016. In particular, we emphasized systemic nature of human rights violations during the April war. One of the signs of it is that the 90% of the citizens of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, who fall under the control of Azerbaijan, were either tortured, or executed, or mutilated”.
Ruben Melikyan stressed that he brought with himself not only the public report but also the restricted edition: “This is a very alarming situation for human rights community, for Europe in general, because of the objective situation we cannot provide independent reports because there is nobody to report. And this is one of the consequences of lack of Europe in Artsakh. So this situation is closely connected to the general issue.”
During his press conference, Artsakh Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan also referred to blogger Alexander Lapshin’s extradition to Azerbaijan: “This is very concerning because they tend to silence free speech in Artsakh and make a visit to Artsakh dangerous for those who decide to visit Nagorno-Karabakh. This is also very concerning human rights issue. It is not only Mr. Lapshin’s issue but also the issue of all those people who have been to Artsakh or decide to go to Artsakh. This is one of the topics which we discussed today with my colleagues.”
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He added: “Nagorno-Karabakh is a country which lives its day by day life. Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh is an ombudsman who makes almost the same job as the other human rights defenders in other parts of the world, we have the same problems, we face the same obstacles. And it is very important for me to discuss the issues with my colleagues especially with human rights community. My principle perception of the situation is that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh is ready and have shown multiple times willingness to be engaged with Europe, and I firmly believe that they need to be given a chance.”
