On October 7, within the framework of the OSCE Annual Human Rights Conference in Warsaw, the delegations of the participating states and international human rights organizations were presented with the results of a fact-finding mission carried out earlier by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office, the Foundation for the Development of Democracy, Freedom House, the International Partnership for Human Rights, the Foundation for the Development and Protection of Rights, “Protection of Rights without Borders” and Truth Hounds. The mission comprehensively documented the situation of the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh from the 44-day war of 2020 to the September 2023 displacement. The HCAV office was presented by the organization’s Program Manager Vardine Grigoryan.
The report “Why Are There No Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh?” prepared as a result of the fact-finding mission, the main conclusions of which were presented at the Warsaw event, document that Azerbaijan has subjected the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh to forced displacement and ethnic cleansing through deliberate and calculated actions. Interviews with more than 300 witnesses conducted during the fact-finding mission and analysis of data available in open sources allowed us to conclude that Azerbaijan’s actions constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and meet the definition of forced displacement of a population, as well as the criteria for ethnic cleansing established by UN experts in the context of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
At the event, representatives of Armenian and international human rights organizations addressed various violations of the rights of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in their speeches, as well as raised concerns about Azerbaijan’s policy and actions to eliminate traces of Armenian cultural heritage and presence in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The OSCE Human Rights Conference is an annual prestigious event that provides an important platform for discussions on the human rights situation in the OSCE area. The event, organized in Warsaw, was another opportunity for Armenian civil society to present the results of the international fact-finding mission on the violations and displacement of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. As part of this process, the OSCE and partner organizations had previously presented the results of the report “Why Are There No Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh?” to US government agencies and UN human rights bodies.
