Differences between the circumstances related to Armenians held in Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani soldier arrested in Armenia

On April 24, at the plenary session of the PACE, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunya Mijatovich referred to the video shared on social media of an Azerbaijani soldier who infiltrated the Republic of Armenia from Nakhichevan, comparing it to videos depicting the torture and murder of Armenian soldiers.

Husein Akhundov, an Azerbaijani soldier who had infiltrated the Republic of Armenia and who is accused of murdering a 56-year-old man at the guard post of the Kajaran copper-molybdenum combine, was spotted by local civilians in the Kapan community on April 13. After some time, a video of Akhundov surrounded by civilians was circulated on the Internet. There were traces of violence and blood on his face. 

On the same day, Akhundov’s video, made before he was found, was circulated on the Internet, In the video, he declares: “We shed Armenian blood, we beheaded an Armenian.” 

Commissioner Mijatovich addressed the topic at the plenary session, answering the question of Samad Seyidov, the representative of the Azerbaijani delegation to the PACE. Seyidov was interested in why the commissioner did not react to the video of the “tortured Azerbaijani serviceman”, as he put it.

Mijatovich reminded about the videos depicting the torture of Armenians by the Azerbaijani soldiers, at the same time emphasizing the similarity between them and the video depicting the Azerbaijani soldier.

“When it comes to that video, with all due respect, sir [refers to Seyidov-Ed.], I never comment on this kind of videos. There was a similar video last year in relation to Azerbaijan doing similar things to Armenian soldier. These videos are horrifying…”, Mijatovich noted.

What “similar” videos are there references to?

During the days of yet another aggression by Azerbaijan against the sovereign territory of Armenia in September of last year, the most circulated videos depicted scenes of torturing, killing, or desecrating the corpses of Armenian servicemen.

One of the videos shows Azerbaijanis shooting Armenian soldiers to death. There was major international reaction to the incident. A number of international news outlets published extensive investigations. The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch also raised an alarm about a committed war crime.

The next horrifying video during the September aggression by Azerbaijan depicted the torture, humiliation and murder of an Armenian female soldier.

Thus, the video of the Azerbaijani soldier who infiltrated the Republic of Armenia and is accused of murder of an Armenian civilian and the videos depicting the murders and tortures of the Armenian prisoners of war last year, especially during the September aggression, are not equivalent.

Nane Manasyan