The International Commission of Jurists published a report on the problems of the justice system in Azerbaijan: “Justice under pressure. independence of lawyers and the right to a fair trial in Azerbaijan”.

Discussing the many problems and violations existing in Azerbaijan’s justice system, the report analyzed in detail the trials of Armenians tried in Baku in the light of international standards. “The trials against the former officials of Nagorno-Karabakh represent these concerns in their most acute manifestation,” the report states.

It is clearly recorded that these trials do not meet the standards of international human rights law.

“According to publicly available sources, the trials of Armenians were accompanied by practices that violate the fundamental guarantees of a fair trial. They were held in a military court without any justification as to why military jurisdiction should be applied to civilians.

The accused were deprived of the effective assistance of their chosen lawyer. State-appointed attorneys did not respond to the evidence of ill-treatment they personally witnessed. The case materials were either not provided or were provided in a language that the accused did not understand. Defense motions were systematically denied without justification and were not included in the trial records. Translation was inadequate or non-existent, and public access, including to accredited diplomatic representatives, was denied.

These systemic flaws show how executive influence, prosecutorial oversight, and limitations on the independence of lawyers can combine to result in trials that do not meet international human rights standards and human rights standards of fair trial, equality of arms, and public scrutiny. As analyzed in this report, these lawsuits are not isolated deviations from established practice, but reflect broader systemic problems,” the report emphasizes.

Additionally, it is also noted that the trials were mostly held behind closed doors, only the presence of state media was allowed. international observers, foreign media and family members of the accused were prohibited from attending court sessions;

“In the absence of transparency, most of the available information refers to the separate trial of Ruben Vardanyan. Vardanyan took public office in Nagorno-Karabakh only in late 2022, but the prosecutor’s office charged him starting in 1988, despite the fact that he was a student at Moscow State University at the time. Prosecuting Vardanyan for alleged actions in 1988, more than three decades later and only after he assumed public office, raises fundamental concerns from the perspective of the principle of legality. During that period, Vardanyan did not hold any political position and could not have predicted that the alleged actions of those years could later become the basis for criminal charges after starting political activity.”

The report presented a number of recommendations to the executive authorities, prosecutor’s office, judicial authorities and the parliament of Azerbaijan. The judicial authorities are urged to “Ensure that any appeal in the cases of former officials of Nagorno Karabakh is examined by a civil court of general jurisdiction.” Ensure the provision of case materials to the defense in a language understandable to the accused and ensure sufficient time and opportunities for the preparation of the defense at all stages of the proceedings, including during the appeal.

The report also calls for the Council of Europe to be granted access to consider possible appeal hearings.

Ruben Vardanyan, Armenian prisoners in Baku, International Commission of Jurists, justice under pressure, Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh, mock trial

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“Pashinyan faced reality. Of course, he was aware that his rating was low, people were dissatisfied, disgusted, disliked, hated, etc., etc., but now he is facing himself, he is facing reality.” 168․amin a conversation with Nikol Pashinyan, referring to the reasons for the noisy episodes of the campaign, he mentioned this psychologist Karine Nalchajyan։

Let us remind you that recently Pashinyan has been communicating with the citizens opposing him with rather rude words: “to kill”, “to kill”, “to crush”… even labels, for example, the relatives of the servicemen who died as a result of the tragic incident at the Azat shelter, accusing them of bringing money.

According to Karine Nalchajyan, under the influence of negative emotions, Nikol Pashinyan expresses his true essence, character and real attitude towards people, towards the country, towards the problems and issues of the country.

“When we see what he is like in those moments. he doesn’t have a mask, and imagining his perspective that he can suddenly oppose the spread of this atmosphere of fear, the use of administrative resources, being protected by several layers of law enforcement, clouds are gathering and his chair is rocking very hard.

There is also a game in that behavior.  that game needs to deepen and spread the atmosphere of fear. A frightened person will think, as they say, away from trouble, and will not go to elections.

And it is unfortunate that he discredits our country with his behavior, discredits our state, our nation once again. We are not the only ones looking at those shots, what kind of idea will they form about the life of our state and country?

One of the main weapons of the psychological war is to lower and humiliate the self-esteem of the given public, which it still managed to do. he continues to hit several rabbits with one shot, which is a big blow to us, very dangerous,” explained the psychologist.

According to the expert, the best form of self-defense for citizens should be contempt, not giving in to provocation. Karine Nalchajyan emphasizes that the opposition political forces should not give in to these provocations either.

“You can’t fall into that trap,” he concluded.

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Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Ankara Rashad Mammadov “revealed” when the Turkish-Armenian border will be opened.

According to the Azerbaijani mass media, in his statement to the Turkish “Cumhuriyet” newspaper, the Azerbaijani diplomat said that the borders will be opened after the June 7 parliamentary elections in Armenia and subsequent constitutional changes. Rashad Mammadov also responded to the claims that Turkey wants to open the borders with Armenia, but Azerbaijan is against it. The ambassador stated that constant consultations are held between Ankara and Baku, and the process of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations is proceeding parallel to the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.

He added that after the June 7 parliamentary elections, it is expected to remove the so-called “territorial claims” from the Armenian constitution through amendments. Mammadov noted that after that, the peace treaty initialed in the USA between Azerbaijan and Armenia will be signed. The ambassador emphasized that at the end of this process, along with the Armenian-Turkish borders, the Armenian-Azerbaijani borders will also be opened. A few days ago, RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan announced that the Armenian-Turkish dialogue is so mature that at any moment there can even be a complete settlement.

While the RA authorities made the so-called peace theme the main theme of their pre-election campaign, the statement of the Azerbaijani ambassador in Ankara proves once again that Turkey and Azerbaijan continue the policy of harsh preconditions and synchronized pressures on Armenia. This diplomatic concept clearly shows that Ankara and Baku refuse to be guided by such a fundamental principle of international law as the establishment of bilateral relations without preconditions.

Instead, the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem is using the “interdependence” tactic to advance its own agenda, directly conditioning the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border and the regulation of relations and taking Armenian-Azerbaijani processes hostage.

It is also noteworthy how the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance interferes in the internal political and institutional processes of Armenia, violating the norm of non-interference in the internal affairs of states. Linking the opening of the borders with specific dates and the Mother Law of Armenia is a manifestation of classic political blackmail.

The Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem is trying to legitimize its own imposed agenda through external coercion, turning the Armenian processes and electoral rounds into a tool to satisfy its own demands. This aims to maximally weaken Armenia’s negotiating positions from now on, forcing the Armenian side to make unilateral concessions at the expense of sovereignty.

Ultimately, this policy exposes the falsehood of Ankara and Baku’s rhetoric about establishing lasting peace in the region. The signing of the “Peace Treaty” and the opening of the borders are presented not as the beginning of the formation of an atmosphere of regional cooperation and trust, but as the end result of Armenia’s servitude. By conditioning bilateral relations with the whims of a third party (in this case, Azerbaijan), Turkey refuses to be a constructive actor in the region.

As a result, this maximalist strategy adopted by the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem does not contribute to the integration and stability of the South Caucasus, but maintains geopolitical tension by using the lifting of the blockade of Armenia as a lever for constant political pressure.

In this complex geopolitical context, the apparent disproportion of the reactions of the RA authorities and the application of double standards become prominent. In the event that official Yerevan reacts to the statements from the Russian Federation with an extremely sharp and public rebuttal, as today the RA Foreign Minister sharply emphasized that it is not from the Russian Federation that they should say that EEU and EU membership are incompatible, showing a strong sovereign attitude, full commitment is shown to the direct threats and preconditions of the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem.

Or sometimes at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs there is a soft answer that the amendment of the RA Constitution is an internal matter of the RA. The authorities of Armenia not only do not show adequate political resistance to the demands imposed by Baku and Ankara regarding the amendment of the Constitution or other sovereign issues, but in practice they fulfill them step by step while continuing to welcome the “peace agenda” and even publicly thank Ilham Aliyev.

This approach shows the deep imbalance of the foreign policy, where tolerant tactics are applied to the hostile tandem extracting concessions, and the tactical line of intolerance is chosen in relations with the allies.

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Recently, I was wondering whether to address this shameful episode or not, because it is related to the commander of the Special Forces, the national hero of the RA, Vahagn Asatryan, who died in the 44-day war. There were some records in the past, but we skipped it, not wanting his name to be circulated too many times. However, I decided to make a short reference anyway, and it has its justification.

And so. On April 30, I noticed a post by Roman Baghdasaryan, a blogger close to Nikol Pashinyan, where he blames the Special Forces commander, RA national hero Vahagn Asatryan for leaving Hadrut without a fight, and another commander, Karen Hayrapetyan.

After my respective actions, the post was deleted, but why am I referring to that episode, because it states that this information was included in his book about the 44-day war, you can imagine, right, who writes about the 44-day war, and the former military leadership is silent, speaking of state secrets on principle, the authorities do not want to publish the report of the investigative commission.

Anyway, when I read this raving about Vahagn Asatryan, whom I know very well, the first thing I remembered was what his mother, Mrs. Sima Petrosyan, told me on one occasion in “Erablur”, where, in particular, noted. 

“When he was already in Hadrut, our conversation on the night of the 11th of October (M.P.)… we talked for a long time, he was tired, but he spoke and answered my questions. said: “Mom, I’m in Hadrut, they can’t enter Hadrut, I lengthen the positions, I deepened, everything is normal.” was excited on the 11th of the month he hit Azerbaijani “Yashma” and caused great damage. For the first time, I said: my son, your family misses you, your wife, your sons, he said: Mom, Simash, I can’t come, it’s impossible to leave the army and come. I knew that Azerbaijan wanted to destroy him, wherever they caught him, all their raids…”.

RA National Hero, colonel Vahagn Asatryan died October 12, 2020, after which, in fact, his unit was morally “destroyed”. On the same day, a lieutenant colonel and a detective were also killed Vahagn Tumasyan, a major was also killed at the same time Levon Avetisyan.

Let’s return to Baghdasaryan, who at the same time in his book wrote as if “95 percent of the information about Hadrut was given to Artsrun Hovhannisyan as false, and with that lie they killed our special forces.” Here, of course, pro-government bloggers no bypass Pegow in an accusing tone.

And it’s no wonder that during the 44-day visit, the same Pegov was not only with Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, so to speak, giving and receiving, but also with Artsrun Hovhannisyan. Moreover, Nikol Pashinyan considered the information given by Arayik Harutyunyan more reliable than that of Onik Gasparyan, the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia.

Apart from this, not once we wrote that foreign media, questionable bloggers, pro-government circles had access to war zones during the war, while Armenian media was limited in reporting even the reliable information they had. Another episode should be remembered here.

of 2020 on October 9 At that time, the representative of the RA Ministry of Defense Artsrun Hovhannisyan published a photo on his Facebook page, stating: “With the commander.”

That is, on or before October 9, a plan of action is drawn up, and on October 10, the commander of the defense area of ​​the Defense Zone N abandons the duties of the commander of an individual regiment and shows a careless attitude. At least, after the war, a criminal case was initiated against him on this charge.

And why does Yailoyan refuse the duties of a regiment commander, maybe he was not familiar with the terrain of the southern parts of Artsakh, the Hadrut region, as required by combat operations, after all, Yailoyan left for Artsakh service from Yerevan, before that he served in Meghri. And maybe there were other problems?

Anyway, after a while, how? we reported The criminal prosecution against the colonel accused in the criminal case related to the 44-day movement is stopped. And the charges brought against the colonel did not prevent him from continuing his service in the southwestern border zone of RA, and then he was entrusted with a position in the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces, he is considered one of Suren Papikyan’s close friends.

Let’s go back to Vahagn Asatryan, there are not many commanders like him, and now some blogger with a dubious past decides to find the culprit for the loss of Hadrut and put the responsibility on one of the best commanders who died while defending the motherland, by the way, we still need to understand the circumstances of his death, because he was targeted by the enemy, and there were collaborators with the enemy from the Armenian side on the battlefield.

Any episode related to Hadrut should also be thoroughly investigated one day, by the way, as in the case of Shushi, the authorities have tried to put the loss of Hadrut in the pockets of different people at different times.

The 44-day page is not closed, one day any episode should be subjected to military and legal investigation. Until then, we must protect our heroes from “dirty hands”, as they protected us on the battlefield.

We should not watch with indifference how our de jure and de facto heroes are discredited today, because they are not only their relatives. That’s all.

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168TVof “Trigger” the guest of the program is Russian political scientist Sergey Markedonov:

During the program, the meeting between the leaders of the USA and China, the economic and political agreements reached, the possibility of the resumption of military operations against Iran, as well as the expected visit of Vladimir Putin to Beijing were discussed.

The meeting between Vladimir Zelensky and Ilham Aliyev was also discussed, as well as the announcements about the possible production of weapons.

A separate reference was made to the topic of the European Political Community Summit in Armenia.

Special attention was paid to the upcoming elections in Armenia and the possible development of the internal political situation in the country. In the framework of the discussion, the questions regarding the support of Nikol Pashinyan in the elections by the European Union, Turkey and Azerbaijan, as well as the position of Russia were considered.

Hayk Derzyan

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The Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Turkey, Rashad Mammadov, revealed the price of Nikol Pashinyan’s reproduction, but “the ball is now in the court of the Armenian people” – will we tolerate such a blatant interference in the internal affairs of our country or will we show resistance? 168 TVof Revue expressed such an opinion on the air of the program Political scientist Suren Surenyants, a candidate for the National Assembly on the pre-election list of PAPthecommenting on the statement of the Ambassador of Azerbaijan in an interview to “Jumhuriet” that the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border was conditioned by the internal political processes of Armenia.

According to Surenyants, Mammadov’s statement that “the Armenian-Turkish border will be opened after the parliamentary elections of June 7, when the process of amendments to the Armenian constitution will be completed” reveals Baku’s precondition for Nikol Pashinyan.

“Mamedov made a very obvious discovery. We all know that Azerbaijan has that tough precondition on the way to signing the peace treaty, and that is the price of Nikol Pashinyan’s reproduction, that is, Aliyev tolerates his happy vassal, Nikol Pashinyan, to be reproduced only on the condition that he implements the new Azerbaijani preconditions. The first is the amendment of the Constitution,” commented Suren Surenyants.

The political scientist adds, secondly, the ambassador of Azerbaijan actually confirmed the fact that the settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations is completely determined by Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. Of course, these are the approaches of official Baku and Ankara, and by recording these facts, Surenyants shows the real situation to the Armenian society, leaving the consequences to the voters.

“This is a wonderful discovery for all our voters who, as if they have no alternative, want to choose Pashinyan or are still undecided, subject to the government’s media terror. Take a stand, dear compatriots, you are openly told that the re-election of Nikol Pashinyan means the transformation of Armenia into an Azerbaijani sub-state,” said Suren Surenyants.

The candidate for the National Assembly emphasizes that Turkey and Azerbaijan are trying in every way to support Pashinyan in these elections, and in this case “the ball is in the court of the Armenian people”, will we tolerate this interference?

«Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said about it very openly months ago. They are making every effort so that their vassal, or to say Nikol Pashinyan’s favorite words, the one who “squats” in front of them or the one who “squats” in front of the other, is re-elected to the position of the Prime Minister of Armenia. Now the ball is in the court of the Armenian people, as well as the opposition. Are we going to tolerate such an interference in our internal affairs, which is the shortest way to Azeriization of Armenia, or are we going to show resistance?– announced Suren Surenyants.

Speaking about Pashinyan’s unbalanced and jerky behavior during the campaign, Surenyants is not in a hurry to consider his situation as completely absurd, but notes that the panic is obvious.

In this context, referring to Pashinyan’s yesterday, containing threats to “dismember” and “kill” of announcements to the question, Suren Surenyants says:

“If we lived in a normal country, the law enforcement agencies would have detained this person spreading violence and hate speech a long time ago, because, apart from the opposition, he is specifically targeting a specific part of Armenia, the Artsakh Armenians. It does this consciously. I’m saying that if we lived in a normal country, he would not have planned his regular campaign day long ago, but would have waited for the “tulik” (handover: – A.S.) in the isolation cell of the National Security Service.

Surenyants emphasizes that he knows that this is the dream of a significant part of the society, not because our society is evil, but because he believes that Nikol Pashinyan will have to answer for the national destruction and tragedy he brought. In this regard, referring to the video of unknown origin spreading on the Internet and containing threats to Pashinyan, Suren Surenyants noted that after seeing such a video, a reasonable leader instructs the law enforcement agencies to order an investigation, quickly identify the creators of this really unacceptable content and find out all the circumstances, which is what the opposition demands, and Nikol Pashinyan, instead of doing this, uses it as a “weapon” against the opposition and turns into an “information killer” by attacking him. seeing Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Samvel Karapetyan among all the citizens who oppose him.

According to Suren Surenyants, the opposition forces need Nikol Pashinyan alive and well.

“If this investigation is not done, instead of an investigation, we see that Nikol Pashinyan is using this as an excuse to target Armenian citizens as a political or information killer, reasonable doubts may arise that this content was created either in the cabinet of the government or in the cabinet of any of the owners of this government. As General Manvel used to say.

“You have a hammer in your hand, a nail, and a nail.” Find out. Then, for example, I learned from Nikol Pashinyan that there is such a video… He doesn’t even imagine that the key opposition forces need him alive and well. He has so many questions to answer. I said that there is another one, lying in the “basement of the KGB”, waiting for his blog friend. I am talking about Nairi Hunanyan. Why does it seem to him that the opposition wants to target him? The opposition needs him alive and well. Many articles of the Criminal Code, sitting under the wall, “weep” for him,” Surenyants added.

The political scientist puts forward the hypothesis that with this Nikol Pashinyan is creating an excuse either to start repressions or to postpone the elections.

According to Surenyants, we can give different assessments, but there is only one solution: to remove him politically.

Full interview in the video.

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