The Human Rights Defender of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has published an annual report on the office's activity in 2020, which also details Azerbaijan's human rights violations during the large-scale aggression against the people of Artsakh in fall 2020.
In 2020, the Ombudsman’s Staff received 377 applications from 481 persons on social security, labor, administration, property, electoral and a number of other rights. The total number of applications, however, does not include the hundreds of applications received during the hostilities because the Ombudsman's office has not managed to maintain proper statistics due to the situation.
"If before the war the applications mainly referred to the above mentioned rights, during and after the war they covered the rights to life and health of servicemen and civilians, receiving information about the missing, evacuation of civilians, social security, labor and other rights and issues," the Defender's office said in a statement on Monday, April 5.
"The annual report also details the results of the fact-finding mission initiated by the Ombudsman and the reports based on them to document the human rights violations as a result of the large-scale aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against the people of Artsakh on September 27, 2020."
Dozens of videos of Azeri troops cutting the throats and ears of Armenians have been spreading online since the final days of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh during the 44 days of the war and after it. The Azerbaijanis subject the Armenian POWs and captives to physical abuse and humiliation. The videos depict Azerbaijani captors variously slapping, kicking, and prodding Armenian POWs, and compelling them, under obvious duress and with the apparent intent to humiliate, to kiss the Azerbaijani flag. In most of the videos, the captors’ faces are visible, suggesting that they did not fear being held accountable.
