Human rights defender Anahit Manasyan continues to follow the issues related to the rights of all ethnic Armenians illegally deprived of their freedom in Azerbaijan, keeping in mind the importance of preserving the universal principles and values of human rights.
All the processes related to them taking place in Baku are taking place in gross violations of the universal principles and values of human rights and international legal standards.
The defender's continuous monitoring shows that even before the illegal deprivation of liberty, they were already labeled as "criminals" in Azerbaijan. Moreover, hateful and hostile insults directed at the mentioned persons, killing Armenians, continue to spread widely in the Azerbaijani media domain and social platforms. calls for violence and deep hatred towards Armenians.
It is obvious that the so-called "trials" taking place in Baku, in the context of state-sponsored propaganda of ethnic hatred and violation of the presumption of innocence, contradict the requirements of the right to a fair trial, and cannot be considered as conducted by a fair and impartial court. Concerns about the illegality of this process are raised by various human rights defenders, lawyers, and authoritative international actors.
The right to a fair trial is enshrined in a number of international legal documents. Moreover, in the context of the mentioned right, the European Court of Human Rights considers the preservation of the principle of presumption of innocence in several dimensions, including the need to preserve this principle by state bodies and mass media.
Concerns raised by various actors also indicate that ethnic Armenians under criminal prosecution are deprived of the procedural guarantees that are a component of the right to a fair trial, including the right to effective defense through a lawyer of their choice and the right to receive the assistance of an interpreter with appropriate guarantees. The human rights defender shares the concerns regarding the effective implementation of the right to protection.
Moreover, the reports of the RA human rights defender, various human rights organizations, and international authoritative structures (for example, "Human Rights Watch", the UN Committee against Torture) have regularly raised concerns about torture and ill-treatment of ethnic Armenians deprived of their freedom.
The human rights defender emphasizes that all actors with a mandate in the field, including the international ones, should take prompt and proper steps to solve the problem. Under his mandate, the Ombudsman continues to address all these issues to actors with a mandate to protect human rights.
