Hayk Mamijanyan, head of the “I Have the Honor” faction in the National Assembly, addressed the PACE plenary session with a speech about Armenian prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan and the need to visit them.
Today is the last day of this session, and we are all eagerly awaiting the return home and reunion with our families. I’m sure you’ve learned about their condition many times over the past few days through text messages and phone calls. Because we love them and worry about them.
Imagine if you couldn’t do that. It’s incredible, isn’t it? But the relatives of Armenian prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan are deprived of this opportunity. After the closure of the Red Cross office in Baku, the relatives of the hostages and we have no information about the condition of our compatriots.
You could say this is big politics, a conflict, international treaties, and so on, but it’s not: these are people’s lives, human tragedies. There are reports of hostages attempting suicide and going on hunger strikes. It’s a great shame, but we don’t even know the exact number of our brothers illegally held in Azerbaijan. Some of them may no longer be alive.
Therefore, I appeal to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and the representatives of member states: please instruct your ambassadors in Baku to visit the Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijani prisons. Please do this immediately to prove that Europe still believes in humanism.
Don’t leave our compatriots alone with a dictator. Thank you.