Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan presented a report regarding prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan.
“During the 44-day war of 2020, Armenian servicemen and civilians taken captive by the Azerbaijani armed forces were subjected to systematic physical and psychological torture.”
This was stated by Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan during a press conference held at the Armenia Marriott Hotel, presenting an extraordinary report compiled by human rights defenders concerning the Azerbaijani state’s responsibility for gross violations of the rights of Armenian prisoners, their torture and inhuman treatment by Azerbaijani armed forces, the conditions of captivity, and the legal protection of civilians.
Tatoyan emphasized that the torture of Armenian prisoners of war was based on ethnic discrimination, namely on the circumstance of the prisoners being Armenian.
“Of course, the most cruel treatment occurs immediately after capture, especially at the hands of special services employees. For example, there have been cases when food was thrown on the ground and they were forced to eat it. Or there was a case when they were given only 10 seconds, after which the food was thrown into the garbage. Often the torture involved deliberately pressing a finger on a wound, and moreover, it was done in such a way that people would beg and plead for medical assistance and food before it was given. They also deliberately rubbed cold water on naked servicemen in cold weather with the window left open,” the Human Rights Defender recounted.
Former captives told the Human Rights Defender that when people from the Red Cross came to visit, the treatment would be changed beforehand. They were treated with particular cruelty for the purpose of obtaining information; among the desired information was obtaining personal data, and they were forced to make statements praising Azerbaijan’s leadership and statements denigrating the Armenian government.
According to the Human Rights Defender, there is clear evidence of the forcible extraction of false information.
“One of the soldiers was forced to say that there had been a wedding in Zangelan and that he had blown it up with a grenade, killing 50 Azerbaijanis.”
According to Tatoyan, particularly cruel treatment was shown towards participants of the April War and the first Artsakh liberation struggle. Also, those prisoners of war who refused to comply with the demands of Azerbaijani soldiers were treated with especial cruelty.
“Particularly abhorrent are those cases when people were tortured in public, for example in hospitals. Passers-by, for instance patients, spat on Armenian prisoners, and this took place in the presence of an Azerbaijani special services officer,” Tatoyan informed, noting that even doctors used violence against the prisoners.
Boiling water or tea was poured on the body of one prisoner of war, after which he was beaten, and then he could not walk for 21 days.
According to the Defender, the Azerbaijanis also violated the religious rights of prisoners of war by collecting their crosses.
Human rights defender Siranush Sahakyan, for her part, added that three main structures carried out the torture of Armenian prisoners of war: Azerbaijan’s military police, the investigative isolation facility, and the isolation facilities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. The punitive and targeted beatings, according to Sahakyan, continued within Azerbaijan’s national security isolation facilities.
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