Category: News

Artsakh leaders in a Baku court during their sham trial

An attorney representing Armenian captives being held in Baku at the European Court of Human Rights said on Friday that “HayPost,” Armenia’s national postal service, has refused to process letters from relatives to the prisoners being held in Baku.

Speaking at conference entitled “Freedom, Justice and Reintegration,” Siranush Sahakyan, who recently visited Los Angeles, stressed that assurances made by government officials that relatives can send letters to Azerbaijan via “HayPost” conflicted with the actual reality on the ground.

“The government indicated that letters could be sent directly to Azerbaijan via ‘HayPost.’ I should note that we have attempted this many times over the years—and continue to do so—and we have evidence that ‘HayPost’ refuses to process any correspondence involving communication from Armenia to Azerbaijan,” Sahakyan said, adding that this is yet another instance where the authorities are providing conflicting statements to the public in regards to the Armenian prisoners.

She recalled that Veronica Zonabend, the wife of former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, who is one of the captives serving a 20-year sentence, had launched an initiative encouraging relatives to write letters to their captive relatives. These letters were then collected and forwarded to the Government of Armenia, with the aim of having them delivered, through official channels, to the captives in Baku.

Sahakyan argued that this was part of larger issue of depriving the Armenian captives from having contact with the outside world, adding that Zonabend’s initiative intended to curtail that situation.

However, it has become evident that Armenia’s postal service is not processing this correspondence, further complicating the state of isolation of the captives.

During her presentation, Sahakyan also said that the captives were also being denied effective legal representation, citing Vardanyan’s case as an example.

“Once again, we are seeing ‘innovative’ approaches. On several recent occasions, Ruben Vardanyan’s Azerbaijani public defender has been denied access. In effect, even the lawyers appointed by the Azerbaijani state—and funded by it—are unable to gain access or provide any form of legal assistance within the framework of domestic legal procedures,” Sahakyan pointed out.

She added that Vardanyan has not appealed the court ruling, thus, under Azerbaijani law, the decision is final and has entered into legal force.

“An appeal has been filed with the Supreme Court regarding the ‘case of the 15.’ However, at the time of the filing, the public defenders once again did not have access to the judicial act issued by the appellate instance,” Sahakyan explained.

“We have been in communication with the public defenders and have received written confirmation that the appeals were filed in a generic manner—based on mere assumptions—because the Azerbaijani authorities failed to provide the judicial acts to the appointed public defenders,” she explained.

“It is clear that an effective appeal cannot be pursued without the verdict; yet, being deprived of any opportunity to obtain it, the appeal filed was merely a formality. We have no expectations whatsoever,” she emphasized.

Sahakyan also pointed out that it has been a year since any representative from an international organization has met with the Armenian captives held in Azerbaijani prisons.

She explained that information regarding the captives comes exclusively from Azerbaijani sources.

It remains unclear whether the Armenian government is making sufficient efforts to facilitate consular visits—or to ensure that representatives from third countries can visit them in Baku, she highlighted.

“We are hearing that the Republic of Armenia has confirmed that it has reached out to third-party states, yet it not clearly articulating whether these third-party states have provided their consent,” Sahakyan said.

”It seems we are shifting the focus from Azerbaijan’s responsibility to that of third countries, and we are forced to accept the painful reality that, across the entire globe, not a single nation has been found—one that possesses a humanitarian conscience and maintains a relationship with the Republic of Armenia strong enough to undertake the vital humanitarian mission of visiting Armenian citizens on Armenia’s behalf,” emphasized Sahakyan.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan—without naming any specific countries—stated that the Armenian side had reached out but did not receive a positive response.

For Sahakyan, however, there are still many unanswered question. She said it was unclear which countries were approached, or whether it was a single country or several countries?

“At the very least, all this raises doubts as to whether the steps taken have been effective. For instance, thanks to the efforts of civil society organizations, Switzerland confirmed last year that it was prepared to carry out this mission. Has Armenia reached out to Switzerland?” Sahakyan wondered.

Border breach victim Ani Avetisyan in her hospital room (Azatutyun.am screen capture)

Continuing the effort by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government to downplay a breach of Armenia’s national border, the country’s National Security chief, Alen Simonyan, on Friday seemingly defended the Azerbaijani soldier who walked into a residence in the Syunik Province and shot a woman and held her children at gunpoint.

Simonyan told reporters on Friday that the Azerbaijani soldier, Nasimi Musayev, shot and seriously injured the resident of the Shaki village in Syunik, Ani Avetisyan, because he feared for his life.

In recounting the incident, Avetisyan said that she and her family feared for their life, because Musayev was going to kill them. She told Azatutyun.am on Monday that she was in nearby Sisian when one of her children called to alert her about an intruder in their house. Avetisyan then rushed to the house and found that Musayev was holding her children at gunpoint.

Simonyan, on the other hand, rationalized that Musayev was lost, and might have been suffering from medical issues.

“He got lost—what else could have happened? The man got lost,” Simonyan told reporters, saying that Azerbaijanis had informed the Armenian government that one of their soldiers had left his unit in Lachin. Simonyan went on to say that Azerbaijani presidential adviser Hikmet Hajiyev has assured him that “as far as they [Azerbaijanis] are concerned, he [Musayev] has committed a criminal offense.”

Simonyan similarly downplayed Hajiyev’s earlier efforts to characterize Armenian monasteries in occupied Artsakh as having Caucasian Albanian provenance.

Simonyan also shared details regarding the time the Azerbaijani soldier spent in Shaki. however, he did not disclose the source of this information, nor did he reveal whether he had reviewed the records of Musayev’s interrogation.

“The house was empty; he went in, ate some food, then lay down and fell asleep… As far as I understand, he was either wounded or had some health issue. It is a simple criminal offense. The term ‘intrude’ implies that there is resistance—that you are struggling against someone. He got lost—and, heaven forbid, it could happen… many people from our side have also gotten lost and ended up over there,” Simonyan said.

In response to the observation that individuals from the Armenian side who get lost do not go on to open fire on civilians, the Secretary of the Security Council remarked that “it depends on the situation,” and then cited examples of street disputes that often take place in Yerevan, but do not involve the breach of the national and sovereign borders of Armenia.

“Not all crimes escalate to physical violence. On the streets of Yerevan, people might end up stabbing each other over something as trivial as honking a horn, or they might simply exchange an insult and drive off. In this case, he arrived, people got scared, he got scared in return—he is essentially a criminal who will be prosecuted in accordance with Armenian legislation,” Simonyan said failing to address the question of how an Azerbaijani serviceman managed to reach the village of Shaki, located approximately eight miles from the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Avetisyan’s recounting of the events of October 1 are in stark contrast to Simonyan’s dismissive approach.

“If I hadn’t acted at that moment, neither I nor the children would have been alive now,” Avetisyan said, speaking at a hospital in Yerevan where she is being treated for her injuries caused by two of at least three bullets fired by Musayev.

“I stepped forward, he saw me, pointed [his assault rifle] at me, fired a shot and missed,” Avetisyan told Azatutyun. “I stepped further forward … He pointed the gun at my son to shoot him. I pulled it away with my hand which got injured [by a second shot.]”

“Then he threw me onto the bed and started hitting me,” Avetisyan said. “That’s when I started fighting back. I told my daughter to go open the gate. I tried to get my son out too, but he wouldn’t leave. At that point, [Musayev] pointed the gun at my chest, intending to shoot, but I forcefully pushed the weapon down, and [a third gunshot] hit my foot.”

In her wounded state, Avetisyan managed to stab Musayev with a kitchen knife before he fled the house and was caught shortly afterward. She lost one of her fingers and needs to undergo more surgeries on her fractured foot in a hospital in Yerevan.

Avetisyan said that although she called the local police just before rushing to Shaki from the nearby town of Sisian, police officers arrived in her house at least five minutes after Musayev had fled. Sisian’s police station is closer to Shaki than a local hotel where she was first notified of the intrusion.

This pattern of downplaying the border breach and essentially blaming the victim started when Pashinyan addressed the matter in parliament, telling lawmakers that Avetisyan should not have acted to protect her family and should have waited until law enforcement personnel arrived at her home.

GLENDALE — “There’s No Place Like Home,” winner of Best First Feature at the Croatia International Film Festival, opens at the Glendale Laemmle for a limited run from October 16 to 22.

“There’s No Place Like Home” is a new documentary by Diana Madison that chronicles the forced displacement of the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh in 2023. Told through the firsthand accounts of survivors and storytellers who lived through it, the film is an urgent, deeply human record of one of the world’s newest refugee crises.

Produced by Ruzanna Kegeyan, Gohar Khojabagyan, Shant Petrossian and Madison, the filmmakers journeyed across Armenia to meet those who fled Artsakh in a matter of days, leaving behind centuries-old villages, hillside churches, sacred ancestral graves and the homes that had anchored generations of their families.

From young activists and creative entrepreneurs to war veterans and the mothers who have endured both profound loss and unimaginable miracles, their stories bear witness to a nine-month blockade, the mass exodus that followed, the cost of displacement and what it takes to rebuild a life far from home.

Yet for every account of what was lost, “There’s No Place Like Home” offers a window into what endures — the sounds, flavors and artistry of Armenia and Artsakh. It is, ultimately, a story of survival lit up by joy, and a celebration of a people whose love for their homeland, and for each other, cannot be erased.

The film captures its subject as resilience in its purest form, and their voices preserve Artsakh’s history, keeping its culture and heritage alive on screen and beyond.

Diana Madison Productions, 374Collective Productions and People of AR Productions presents an AVA Films, Real Production Inc. production.

See the movie in Glendale to amplify its release and keep the legacy of Artsakh alive on the global stage.

Tickets and showtimes are available online.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In August, Asbarez reported on Natelle Ezadjian, a Ferrahian graduate, who triumphantly climbed Mt. Ararat, where she displayed, among other flags, those of Artsakh and her alma mater, the Holy Martyrs Ferrahian Armenian School. Per Asbarez’s request, Ezadjian reflects on her journey.

BY NATELLE EZADJIAN

At 5,137 meters, the wind was violent enough to make my eyes water. 

Or maybe it was my emotions overwhelming me after finally having reached my lifelong dream.

My hands were blue. My stomach was turning. My legs were barely carrying me anymore. My knees were begging me to stop. My breath was short. My head was pounding. I had spent the last few hours climbing through darkness, stopping whenever my body refused to take another step, wondering more than once whether I was actually going to make it.

And then there it was.

The summit.

Somewhere in the chaos of gloves and jackets and frozen fingers, the flags came out.

Armenia. Lebanon. United States. ARF. AYF. Homenetmen. Ferrahian.

And Artsakh.

We had been told before the climb that some flags could not be flown at the summit. I knew what that meant. I knew exactly which one I wanted to see in the sky anyway.

So I took it out.

I held it in both hands and stood there with it against the mountain.

It did not fly. The wind never got to have it.

But I did not put it away.

For a few photographs, at the top of Ararat, I stood there holding Artsakh in my hands.

And maybe that is the part I will remember most.

Not because it was dramatic. There was no speech. No one said anything. I was exhausted enough that even lifting my arms felt like work.

I just looked at that flag.

I had grown up hearing the name of a place that, by the time I was old enough to understand what it meant, was already slipping out of the hands of my generation. I had watched adults grieve it. I had watched maps change. I had heard stories that were never told without a pause somewhere in the middle.

And now I was standing on Ararat.

There are things you spend your whole life trying to explain, and then there are things you can only hold.

So I held it.

Below my feet was the mountain I had drawn as a little girl in Lebanon, long before I had ever seen its real face. Somewhere behind me were the roads that had taken me through Gars, through Ani, through Van, places whose names had lived in Armenian mouths long after they stopped appearing on Armenian maps.

I was eighteen years old.

My hands were shaking.

The flags were snapping around me.

And for a moment, I did not feel like a girl who had finally reached something she had spent years dreaming about.

I felt very, very small.

Not insignificant.

Small in the way a person feels when they suddenly understand that the life they are living did not begin with them.

I thought about the people who had left these lands carrying whatever they could carry. About the ones who never made it anywhere. About the ones who kept Armenian names, Armenian songs, Armenian prayers, Armenian memories alive in places that were never supposed to become home.

And then I looked down at the flag in my hands.

I could not make the mountain give anything back.

I could not undo a century.

I could not bring back a homeland my generation had watched disappear.

But I was there.

And the flag was there.

That had to mean something.

Years earlier, I had drawn Ararat without knowing why I kept putting the same mountain onto every page.

Now I was standing on it, exhausted, half-frozen, surrounded by pieces of every place and every community that had made me who I was.

For all the years I had spent looking at Masis from far away, I had never imagined that one day I would look down from its summit and see my whole life scattered beneath me.

Lebanon.

United States.

Armenia.

Artsakh.

Homenetmen.

AYF.

ARF.

Ferrahian.

Eight flags in the wind.

And me, somewhere among them, trying to understand how a mountain could feel so much like a memory of a home I had never been allowed to have.

CANOGA PARK, Calif. — Homenetmen’s San Fernando Valley “Massis” Chapter is calling on the community to help make room for its next generation. With growing demand for its programs and families waiting to join, Massis has a rare opportunity to expand by purchasing the commercial building directly next door to the Harry K. Ayvazian Youth Center.

The chapter’s growth has made additional space a priority. More than 1,260 active members and 100 teams currently share a single court, with several teams practicing at rented gyms across the Valley. In the past three years alone, more than 660 families have applied to join, and many are still waiting to call Massis home.

Purchasing the property would be the first step. Transforming it into courts, classrooms and usable community space would require additional investment. Both phases would depend on the generosity and involvement of the Massis family and the broader community.

The building next door offers a way to meet that need while keeping the Massis community together. Offered at $5.8 million, the property at 20935 and 20945 Osborne Street shares a property line with the current center. Combining the two properties could create one connected campus, nearly tripling the chapter’s indoor space from roughly 11,000 to more than 31,000 square feet.

That additional space would allow Massis to expand from one court to three, bring teams home and welcome more families. The proposed expansion would also make room for Armenian language classes, Scouting and Troop 1918, meetings, events, and youth and adult programming alongside athletic activities.

The chance to grow directly next door makes this an especially meaningful opportunity for Massis. Turning it into a reality will take a collective effort from families, businesses, organizations and supporters who believe in creating a lasting home for the next generation.

Joseph Titizian, Chairman, Homenetmen Massis Chapter Executive Board commented on the need to expand, “We have run out of room to say yes to our own community. The building next door lets us bring every team home, welcome the families who are waiting, and finally be more than a court. This is how our generation answers the charge Homenetmen was founded on in 1918 — to rise, and to raise others with us.”

To share the vision and discuss the path forward, Massis invites the entire community to a meeting on Thursday, October 15, at 6:30 PM at the Harry K. Ayvazian Youth Center, 20953 Osborne Street, Canoga Park. Attendees will learn more about the property, the financial commitment required and how they can help. Parents, grandparents, coaches, players, scouts, alumni, friends and supporters are all welcome.

Thursday’s meeting is an opportunity to ask questions, explore ways to contribute and help shape what comes next. The chapter encourages everyone who cares about its future to attend and bring others who may be willing to help.

For generations, families have helped build and sustain Massis. Now, the community has an opportunity to build on that legacy and make room for more children and families. Join us on October 15 to be part of that conversation.

Բարձրացի՛ր, Բարձրացո՛ւր — rise, and raise others with you.

Homenetmen is the Armenian General Athletic Union and Scouts, founded in 1918 and active across five continents. The Massis Chapter, based in Canoga Park, is one of its largest, home to more than 1,260 active members, 100 athletic teams and the Scouts of Troop 1918. For more than a generation, it has been where Armenian families in the San Fernando Valley come to play, to lead and to belong. Learn more at Homenetmen “Massis” Chapter’s website.

· October 16, 2026

· October 16, 2026

· October 16, 2026