Armenia's Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan addressed the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation meeting held online on April 28, he said in a Facebook post.

In his speech, the ombudsman reflected on the Azerbaijani armed attacks on Artsakh, during which civilians, including women and children, were targeted and international humanitarian law was violated. Moreover, Azerbaijan launched a war against Artsakh in September 2020 in gross violation of international calls for a ceasefire, including a call by the UN Security Council to immediately cease hostilities during the pandemic, he stressed.

Tatoyan called attention to Azerbaijan’s use of banned cluster munitions to target civilian settlements of Artsakh. He underlined that residents of Syunik and Gegharkunik Province of Armenia were also killed and wounded in Azerbaijani attacks.

Azerbaijani attacks were accompanied by cruelties, beheadings and torture of both prisoners of war and civilian captives, Tatoyan said.

The ombudsman's office studied, translated and analyzed more than 300 video footages of war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani military, including beheadings, dismemberments, torture and inhuman treatment. All the materials were submitted to international human rights organizations.

The human rights defender stressed that the Azerbaijani authorities stick to the policy of hatred and Armenophobia, racism and fascism in Azerbaijan, as evidenced by the opening of the so-called “park of military trophies” showcasing military equipment seized from the Armenian forces during the recent Artsakh war. He called attention to the fact that the wax mannequins depicting Armenian soldiers in the park are deliberately presented in a humiliated state, while the park is open even to visits of small children.

Arman Tatoyan noted that, unfortunately, the civilized international community has not yet properly assessed all these facts, adding the rule "No one should be out of bounds and no right should be ignored" proclaimed in the UN Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda “has not become a principle of real human protection for us in real life, because the protection of human rights did not take place for political reasons.”