13:06,
YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Human Rights Defender of Armenia Kristine Grigoryan delivered a message on the occasion of the 107th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, noting that only the condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, the punishment of those responsible and the restoration of justice can prevent future crimes, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Human Rights Defender.
The message reads: “April 24 marks the 107th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, but justice has not been restored so far. The rights of killed and mutilated men, women and old people, orphans, Armenians who were forcibly expelled from their homes, subjected to inhuman torture on religious or national grounds, have not been restored. Many of them dies with all these in front of their eyes throughout their lives, longing for their relatives and homeland, hope that at least future generations will witness the restoration of justice.
The policy of denial of indisputable realities, which Turkey has been pursuing for more than a century, continues to be a serious challenge to the implementation of international legal system establishing universal norms for the condemnation, prevention and prosecution of crimes against humanity.
Efforts to protect human rights, the rule of law and the universal international justice system, which gained momentum after the First World War, continue to be overshadowed by this extremely reprehensible policy of the Turkish state.
Impunity breeds and justifies new crimes.
Unfortunately, the dangers of genocidal policy on the basis of ethnic and religious hatred have not vanished for our people. The saddest and most recent evidence of this is the documented crimes of the Azerbaijani-Turkish tandem against ethnic Armenians during the 2020 war. The propaganda of ethnic and religious hatred and the criminal acts motivated by it are being carried out by the Azerbaijani state at the state level against the Armenians of Artsakh even now, aiming to evict Artsakh of its native people, eliminate the monuments and samples of centuries-old Armenian culture, erase the traces of Armenianism, make life of Armenians living in their homeland impossible.
Today we pay tribute to the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide, reaffirming that it is the condemnation of the crime, the punishment of the guilty and the restoration of justice that can prevent future crimes."