At the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, where Armenia’s claim against Azerbaijan was examined, after the speech of the representative of Armenia, Yeghishe Kirakosyan, the lawyer representing the interests of Armenia, Martin Lawrence, presented the grounds of Armenia’s application to apply an interim measure against Azerbaijan, why it is necessary to use an interim measure. “It’s not like they just took everything from the hands of the Armenians and left without a reason. They had good reasons to flee their ancestral homeland rather than live under the iron fist of Baku.
Let’s go further from the blockade, Aliyev said: all Armenians in the world are enemies of Azerbaijanis. They are dogs that should be chased away from Nagorno Karabakh and even from Armenia; they are vandals, barbarians, and savages. The ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh know all too well that this hatred has been fostered and embedded in Azerbaijani society. In Azerbaijan, children are taught to hate ethnic Armenians from the cradle. For example, the middle school textbook approved by the Ministry of Education calls Armenia a country with filth flowing in its veins, mixed blood that has no future, spiritually dead, malicious, and hateful, and Armenians are called persons with Satan’s blood”.
Lawyer Martin Lawrence mentioned the case of Ramil Safarov, who was brutally axed to death in his sleep in 2004. “President Aliyev pardoned Safarov after his extradition, promoted him to major, and even returned his 8-year salary. Now, he has become an idol; he is considered a state hero. Apart from that, the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh cannot forget the 44-day war; there are videos on social media of how the armed forces of Azerbaijan commit violence, apply the death penalty to civilians and soldiers, disrespecting their bodies.” He mentioned that due to the 2020 war, tens of thousands of Armenians were displaced from the territories of Karabakh that Azerbaijan occupied.
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A stamp issued in Azerbaijan after the 2020 war was shown in court, which indicates that the “disinfection” of Nagorno Karabakh is planned; it already predicted ethnic cleansing. The lawyer presented how Azerbaijan risked the lives of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh – children, elderly, and pregnant women, by disrupting the supply of gas and electricity, which were condemned by the international community, but even in that case, Azerbaijan continued to shoot at the farmer working on his land, not allowing collect the harvest. “On September 18, surprisingly, the ICRC and the Russian Red Cross were allowed to bring in some limited humanitarian cargo. The whole world welcomed it as a step toward a solution, but it was an impression that the crisis could be solved, it seemed. The attack occurred the next day, calling it a local counter-terrorism operation.”
The lawyer also presented what happened to the population of Karabakh after those military operations and how they slept on the streets in the Russian army base, which at that time was the territory of the Stepanakert airport. He showed the records of the Azerbaijani telegram channels with the news that two children from Artsakh, aged 9 and 11, are missing and are being searched for. “You see for yourself what they wrote; they are too offensive to be read aloud in this hall, but you will find it in the files.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
