Azerbaijan Must Be Punished for Protecting Those Who Beheaded Armenian POWs: Ioannisyan at the OSCE

Today, on June 30, during the OSCE ODIHR Human Dimension Conference held in Vienna, Daniel Ioannisyan, Program Coordinator at the Union of Informed Citizens NGO, addressed the risks of torture and ill-treatment, emphasizing that the problem also exists during criminal investigations, including in Armenia, but is particularly systemic in non-democratic states.

In his speech, Ioannisyan noted that physical and psychological torture is used against Armenian prisoners of war and civilian captives in Azerbaijan to extract forced confessions, which are later upheld by courts in the absence of an independent judiciary. He emphasized that Azerbaijan not only fails to punish the perpetrators of such crimes, but often protects or glorifies them.

The text of Daniel Ioannisyan’s speech, translated into Armenian, is provided below:

“Madame moderator,

Today we are discussing the risk of torture and ill-treatment. It’s a serious problem in many member states, including my country, Armenia, where we have observed some cases where, during criminal investigations, torture or ill-treatment was used by law enforcement to get confessions, information about crimes. While most of these cases are being investigated, and some reforms are implemented , we still see problems with the efficiency and speed of these investigations.

But let’s make it clear: criminal investigation is not the only place where the risk of torture and ill-treatment are high. Some non-democratic member states that are, or were recently, engaged in armed conflicts often use torture and ill-treatment against prisoners of war and civilian captives.

This is a systemic problem that we see in countries like Russia and Azerbaijan: A total systemic inversion of the principles this event aims to defend.

While this session highlights the Mendez Principles-Azerbaijan uses physical and psychological torture to extract forced confessions from Armenian POWs and captives and than that is rubber-stamped by their courts… Because there are no independent courts in Azerbaijan.

Fundamental safeguards like immediate access to an independent lawyer or medical care are systematically denied for Armenian POWs and captives in Azerbaijan.

Even more, perpetrators who have documented themselves torturing, executing and even decapitating Armenian civilians and prisoners during the military aggressions are systematically shielded from prosecution or even celebrated as national heroes.

Just 12 days ago ECHR published a decision against Azerbaijan where it ruled that an Armenian POW was tortured and killed through decapitation. Servicemen like Hayk Toroyan, Qyaram Sloyan, as well as Yuri Asryan, there are documents that they were decapitated while still alive.

So, let’s make it clear: A person, who is applying torture is a criminal for most of us present in this hall but not for Azerbajian.

A clear example of that is the well-known case, when president Ilham Aliyev rewarded an Azerbaijani serviceman who had decapitated the body of an Armenian soldier and proudly posted a photo with the decapitated head on his social media.

Azerbaijan should be punished for shielding and protecting its servicemen who had decapitated Armenian POWs.

Thank you very much!”