Artsakh Republic Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan writes on his Facebook page:
“Since there are many inquiries about the prisoners, I would like to clarify a few points.
- Definitely, their return should be one of the priorities of the state bodies, but the authorized bodies should be separated from the supporting bodies, as well as the subjective problems from the objective difficulties. The authorized body in this matter is the government, represented by the relevant commission.
- As a supporting body, the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Azerbaijan shall assist the state and international structures in carrying out their functions. In particular, we continuously collect information from all possible sources and pass it on to them, provide relevant information to the relatives of prisoners and their lawyers, send applications and reports to various international organizations and decision-makers, and so on. For example, we have carried out large-scale fact-finding activities on missing civilians, transferring the exclusive database to all authorized bodies. Thanks to our efforts, it was possible to save the lives of a group of prisoners, to clarify the information about them: there are already significant successes. However I cannot present more detailed results, given the nuances of the subject and the importance of secrecy for the captives.
Today, I had a long discussion with the responsible representative of the Red Cross, provided additional information to him. I also had separate discussions with international human rights activists.
- It should be borne in mind that there are many delicate and sensitive issues on this topic, and excessive publicity sometimes damages the process and the fate of the captives. However, it is very important that families and the public are as aware of the process and the results as possible. In addition, we must not forget that the process depends primarily on the Azerbaijani side, as the captives are under their control.
- We are actively cooperating with the RA Human Rights Defender, and today my colleague Arman Tatoyan made detailed explanations and emphases, I post the link with comments so that I do not repeat the same things.”
