Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

On October 7, in Warsaw, within the framework of the annual OSCE Human Dimension conference, the delegations of the states participating in the conference and the international human rights organizations were presented the results of the fact-finding mission carried out earlier by Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, Democracy Development Foundation, Freedom House, International Partnership for Human Rights, Law Development and Protection Foundation, Protection of Rights without Borders, and Truth Hounds organizations. The mission has comprehensively documented the situation of the population of ethnic Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh from the 44-day war of 2020 to the forced displacement of September 2023. HCAV was presented by Vardine Grigoryan, the program manager of the Organization. 

The report “Why are there no Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh?” prepared with the results of a fact-finding mission, the main conclusions of which have been presented in the Warsaw event, proves the fact that Azerbaijan, through deliberate and planned actions, subjected the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh to forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. During the fact-finding mission, the interviews conducted with more than 300 witnesses and the analysis of the data available in open sources allowed to conclude that the actions of Azerbaijan are crimes according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and are in line with the definition of forced displacement of population, as well as standards defined by the UN experts on ethnic cleansing in the context of the former Yugoslavia conflict. 

The representatives of the international and Armenian human rights organizations of the event have addressed in their speeches the various violations of the rights of Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, as well as spoke about the policy and actions of Azerbaijan aimed at erasing the traces of Armenian cultural heritage and presence in the territory of Nagorno Karabakh. 

The OSCE Human Dimension Conference is an annual reputable event that is an important platform for the discussions on the situation of human rights  in the territory of OSCE. This event organized in Warsaw was another opportunity for Armenian civil society to represent the results carried out by an international fact-finding mission on the violation of rights of Nagorno Karabakh Armenians and their forced displacement. Prior to this, as part of this process, DDF and partner organizations have presented the results of the report “Why are there no Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh?” to US government agencies and UN human rights bodies.