Today is the 30th anniversary of the proclamation of the Artsakh Republic. A state that has been declared under the immediate threat to the life and existence of its people to guarantee fundamental human rights, first of all, the right to life, Gegham Stepanyan, Ombudsman of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) wrote on his Facebook.
"The 70-year-old policy of ethnic cleansing and discrimination on national grounds, pursued by the Azerbaijani authorities, pushed the people of Artsakh to decide their own destiny and to create an independent state.
Azerbaijan responded to the democratic and transparent actions of the people of Artsakh who stood to realize their right to self-determination enshrined in basic international documents by committing new massacres and killings of Armenians in various cities, such as the massacres in Sumgait, Baku, and Kirovabad. And since January 1992, Azerbaijan tried to silence the people fighting for their rights by using force. In 1994, we managed to secure the protection of our rights through the ceasefire, although we did not receive the support of the international community in that matter, we remained incomprehensibly isolated.
We and the whole world were convinced that this is a matter of neutralizing the threat to life, during the aggressive war unleashed by Azerbaijan against the peaceful population of Artsakh in 2020, when the Azeri-Turkish tandem spared no effort to generate violence, committing a number of war crimes.
The existence and history of the Artsakh Republic is not a history of separatism or aspirations towards any territory, but the simplest and most understandable history of the struggle for human rights and freedoms. This is such a simple reality that it must be understood by any human being who realizes the value and importance of rights and freedoms.
The eternity of the Artsakh Republic means the eternity of democratic values, rights, freedom, dignity, exclusion of discrimination, and peace.
On this crucial day for our people, I call on everyone, including the international community, not to leave our people endowed with natural humanity alone, accepting the indisputable price of freedom as a guideline, to stand by our people."
