Human rights activists are concerned that violence was exerted against the hostage elderly
05:57, February 5, 2014 | News, Other news | Right to be free from torture and inhuman or degrading treatmentArmenian human rights are concerned that violence has been exerted against Armenian elderly taken hostage in Azerbaijan.
The footage broadcasted via Azerbaijani ANS TV Channel, which is widely disseminated in the internet, gave rise to concerns. The video material is an interview with 77-year-old hostage Mamikon Khojoyan. He is placed at a hospital ward with his hand in plaster cast and questions are posed in Armenian and Khojoyan answers. Due to Azeri translation from hardly audible Armenian it is understood that the elderly tells how he crossed the border through orchards. The human rights activists wonder how the elderly got the hand fracture, it is a fact that one the very first day of capture, he freely moves his hand in the pictures disseminated via Azerbaijani websites and no facture is visible. Taking into account the fact that from the beginning Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense and Azerbaijani websites put into circulation the version of Khojoyan’s being a diversionist or being injured in a diversion attempt, Armenia’s former Ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan has serious doubts that the elderly was tortured intentionally to allegedly justify the initially circulated official information.
“I do not rule out that the performance goes beyond Nazi methods and it is not excluded he might have been injured already as a hostage. It reminds more of paranoia, a severe expression of mental illness, rather than an explicit demeanor of political elite or a state body”, stated Larisa Alaverdyan in a talk with “Azatutyun” radio station by terming the situation created around Mamikon Khojoyan as “unprecedented”.
By reminding that showing a hostage and moreover a person with mental issues on TV is already a breach of Geneva Convention, the former Ombudsman highlighted that the issue is already outside those scopes. During the last few years Baku’s attitude towards the hostages, including return of Manvel Saribekyan’s dead body, inflicting another hostage to the state of madness and now treating a 77-year-old elderly in such manner, creates a necessity to resolve Azerbaijan’s issue at the highest levels.
“The experience of Hakob Injighulyan showed that the correspondence with various NGOs provides no outcomes. The issue should be raised at state level”, noted Larisa Alaverdyan, who is also a member of experts’ group of the Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages adjunct to the Government.
“If today Azerbaijan apparently ignores the Red Cross, then we should look for and find another state that will undertake such interventions, since Geneva Conventions provide for such interventions. When we speak of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), it does not mean it is the only organization. Another state or international organization can take on the same mission, starting from Georgia, which has substantial experience in that field and ending up with the USA, France, Germany and other major states that have their embassies in Azerbaijan”, she pointed out.
Baku office of the Red Cross has not yet met Mamikon Khojoyan, since the Azerbaijani authorities have prohibited.
Artur Sakunts also considers the treatment against the elderly as a “disgrace”.
He also considers Mamikon Khojoyan’s bodily injury suspicious. But above all, in a talk with “Azatutyun” Radio station the human rights activist brought up the issue of border defense.
“How does a 77-year-old elderly happen to appear there? Is the border so transparent now?”, wonders Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor.
On top of all these events, noteworthy information was disseminated today, according to which, an Azerbaijani family comprised of 5 members crossed Armenian-Georgian border. Young couple with three children applied to Armenian-Georgian “Bagratashen” checkpoint and requested political asylum from the Armenian authorities. According to the information of Armenia’s SIS, the family complained of persecutions on the part of Azerbaijani authorities and pressures of special services on the basis of the wife’s Armenian descent.
UN Armenian Office and the RA Migration Agency are now engaged in the further future of the aforementioned family.
Source: http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/25249310.html