In recent days, the Azerbaijani media have launched attacks against Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan. Among those lobbying such attacks are members of the Azerbaijani parliament.

The attacks are accompanied by announcements callings for commencement of a process of ousting Arman Tatoyan, extremely insulting remarks, threats and hate speech against the Human Rights Defender of Republic of Armenia (RA).

In addition, threats are communicated to the Human Rights Defender through personal correspondence.

These attacks are connected with the Defender’s statements related to human rights violations afoot during the process of determining the borders of the Republic of Armenia, the appearance of Azerbaijani soldiers (flags and signs) in the Syunik region of the Republic of Armenia, and Azerbaijani provocations against Armenia’s civilians.

Moreover, the statements of the RA Human Rights Defender are patently falsified, followed by a campaign of manipulated misrepresentations.

For example, the Human Rights Defender speaks about the illegality of the presence of Azerbaijani servicemen, flags and placards in Syunik against the background of blatant Azerbaijani war crimes, threats of war, ethnic cleansing and hatred of Armenians with Azerbaijani state support, while the Azerbaijani media presents these transgressions with characterizations such as “hysteria” and “in the so-called Syunik.”

In another instance, the Defender’s statements regarding the Kapan airport, along with the comments of the Kapan mayor, are presented as “causing a scandal” and “an air of hysteria of the Armenian revanchists,” noting that the airport should even be used for Azerbaijani military aviation, and again threatening with the so-called “iron fist” of war.

The Human Rights Defender of Armenia considers absolutely condemnable these manipulative attacks of the Azerbaijani media, which are carried out with the participation of Azerbaijani politicians, dispatch of personal correspondence, and falsification of the substance of the Ombudsman’s substantive statements, all the while inciting new rounds of hostility and anti-Armenian hatred. Each of these reviling episodes are instances which are fraught with new human rights violations.