ECHR ignores Azerbaijani demand that Armenia provide maps of minefields in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone

YEREVAN, June 4. /ARКА/. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused to accept for consideration an Azerbaijani application demanding that Armenia provide maps of alleged minefields (in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone) as a new separate complaint.

The Office of the Armenian Representative to the ECHR said the European Court notified the government of Armenia on June 3 that on June 1 and 2, 2021, Azerbaijan had submitted a new intergovernmental complaint to the ECHR and a demand that it apply interim measures against Armenia for its refusal to provide maps of allegedly mined territories.

"The ECHR considered this interstate complaint filed by Azerbaijan as an integral part of the interstate complaint filed with the ECHR in January of this year, attaching it to the latter. Thus, the ECHR did not accept the intergovernmental complaint under discussion as a new separate complaint," the Office said in a Facebook post.

The Office said that at the beginning of May this year, the Armenian government submitted to the European Court amendments to the interstate complaint filed with the ECHR on February 1, 2021 in the case Armenia v. Azerbaijan, adding the previously presented demands and adding new evidence.

As indicated in the statement, regarding the request of the Azerbaijani side for the application of the interim measure of the ECHR, the Court informed the government of Azerbaijan that on March 5 this year the European Court ruled on the same issue with the justification that they went beyond the scope of Court Rule N39. The European Court emphasized that the decision of March 5, 2021 is still in force, there is no need to make a new decision on the same issue.

Earlier, the Armenian authorities said that official Baku also openly ignores the relevant decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on providing information about Armenian servicemen and civilians captured in Azerbaijan during the war in Artsakh. As a result, in accordance with part 2 of Article 39 of its Regulation, the ECHR on March 9, 2021, decided to notify the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of the interim measures taken against Azerbaijan.

The number of Armenian POWs still in custody in Azerbaijan remains unclear. By the end of February 2021, Armenia’s Representative Office at the European Court of Human Rights had asked the court to intervene with Azerbaijan regarding 240 cases of alleged prisoners of war and civilian detainees.

In approximately 90 percent of those cases, the office said, they had provided photo and/or video evidence confirming that Azerbaijani forces had taken these people into custody. 

Armenia’s leadership said that Azerbaijan has returned 72 POWs and civilians. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that his government has returned all the POWs to Armenia but was still holding approximately 60 people as terrorism suspects.

According to the Human Rights Watch,  Azerbaijani forces abused Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, subjecting them to cruel and degrading treatment and torture either when they were captured, during their transfer, or while in custody at various detention facilities in Azerbaijan.

“The abuse, including torture of detained Armenian soldiers, is abhorrent and a war crime,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It is also deeply disturbing that a number of missing Armenian soldiers were last seen in Azerbaijan’s custody and it has failed to account for them.” 

Scores of videos showing scenes in which Azerbaijani officers can be seen apparently ill-treating Armenian POWs have been posted to social media. Human Rights Watch closely examined and verified more than 20 of these videos, including through interviews with recently repatriated POWs and family members of servicemen who appear in the videos but have not yet returned. -0-