The lives, health and other rights of 120,000 people have been threatened for 16 days now as a result of Azerbaijani fake environmentalists closing the Lachin Corridor connecting Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Armenia. The ad hoc report is published a few days ago by human rights defenders of Armenia and Artsakh with newly updated data on the humanitarian consequences of the blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The report summarized the Azerbaijani public discourse and analyzed the statements of Azerbaijani officials. The consequence is that since November the Azerbaijani political leadership prepared and directed the public opinion on blockade of the Lachin Corridor with the main means of official and quasi-official information and public opinion formation of the government and the use of proven methods.
Kristinne Grigoryan (Armenia’s Human Rights Defender) - Public figures and MPs started to spread such information as to why the road should not be closed, why checkpoints should not be installed, why cargo should not be checked, etc., we came to the conclusion that this blockade is a long-planned operation.
It turns out that the Azerbaijani government propaganda machine has widely used the proven methods of inciting and inflaming Armenian hatred and ethnic hatred towards the Armenians of Artsakh, placing them in the context of false environmental sentiments.
The report also included newly revealed facts about the participants of the action, presented the state of human rights in the conditions of the created humanitarian crisis. In the joint report of the human rights defenders of Artsakh and Armenia, it was emphasized that the environmental organization cannot assume the powers reserved to the government.
Kristinne Grigoryan - The non-governmental organizations talk about the checkpoint, checking cargo, checking people, not allowing them, and these demands are repeated by officials, in practice it is a function of the state authority, the breakdown of logic is exactly that.
Environmentalists are the veil of non-governmental organizations in Baku, because in a democratic country, NGOs demand state authority, and the country's government gives an explanation: NGOs demand to set up a checkpoint, this is a piece from a comedy genre.
How to make the response of the international community to the created situation tangible and visible, according to the Ombudswoman, Armenia should actively continue its diplomatic efforts, demanding that monitoring groups be sent to the blocked road.
Kristinne Grigoryan - The international community is not a very amorphous formulation, we are talking about developed states, responsible international organizations, international judicial tribunals that have made decisions, and monitoring their implementation is a conventional obligation, and member states must submit information to the courts. If the court is not satisfied and cannot come to a conclusion as to what is real, it is the best way to put an end to the different claims about the situation.
According to established practice, the report will be presented to organizations and actors with an international human rights mandate, and it will also be available to international judicial instances where Armenia's demand to stop the blocking of the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia and the world by Azerbaijan is initiated.
