During a phone call with his family on March 13, Ruben Vardanyan attempted to publicly address the Azerbaijani Human Rights Commissioner, Sabina Aliyeva, but the call was forcibly interrupted. This was stated in a statement released by Ruben Vardanyan’s family.
“Ruben Vardanyan was forced to take this step because attempts to contact the Human Rights Commissioner through a lawyer, written requests, and phone calls over the past 10 days have yielded no results. The trials concluded a month ago, but neither Ruben nor, to our knowledge, the other Armenian prisoners have yet received the texts of their official verdicts in any language—Russian, Armenian, or Azerbaijani. They do not know the charges under which they were convicted, or when or where they will be transferred. We are deeply concerned about the current situation. The lack of reliable information about his and other Armenian prisoners’ conditions, as well as the dismantling of independent human rights mechanisms in Azerbaijan, including the expulsion of the International Committee of the Red Cross from the country, deprive all prisoners of any institutional protection. We also fear that even short telephone conversations, the only remaining means of communication, may be interrupted. We are publishing the audio recording of Ruben’s appeal to the Human Rights Commissioner of Azerbaijan, Sabina Aliyeva, which he was not allowed to complete. We hope it reaches its intended recipient.
URGENT APPEAL FROM RUBEN VARDANYAN TO THE REGIONAL GOVERNOR OF AZERBAIJAN, SABINA ALIYEVA (Conveyed during a telephone conversation with her family) March 13, 2026 “I would like… Dear Governor of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ms. Aliyeva. I must address you. Although you kindly provided your telephone number during our first meeting on camera in October 2023, I have been unable to contact you for the past 10 days, despite my best efforts through my lawyer, written requests, and phone calls. Therefore, I am forced to address you publicly. And, unfortunately, I have no other way to convey to you what is happening here to me and my colleagues.
I request a meeting with you. You are the head of the only government agency I can appeal to in this situation, since all other Azerbaijani bodies either exercise state control or… (Here Ruben Vardanyan is interrupted, preventing him from continuing his speech to the Azerbaijani Ombudsman.) And now I am not even allowed to do that. I want to say that, unfortunately, I am not allowed to contact you, so that you, the only person who can in this situation, there… I have not been able to receive a verdict for a month. Not in Russian, not in Armenian, not in Azerbaijani. “I don’t know what I’ve been found guilty of or under what charges. I’m requesting a meeting so we can discuss all of this. Because, unfortunately, the Red Cross has left. There’s no other agency here that could communicate with us. The Armenian government has no representation here and is busy with supplies… (The conversation is interrupted by the Azerbaijani side, not giving Ruben Vardanyan a chance to finish his speech to the ombudsman.)” the statement reads.