Author: Shushan Frangulian

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the State Department place Azerbaijan on its Special Watch List for its ongoing and systematic religious freedom violations. The report also cites the Azerbaijani attack on Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi.

The country update also details the many obstacles posed by mandatory registration and other restrictions on religious communities, the continued imprisonment of religious activists, and recent violations committed in the context of the renewed conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

The report highlights that during the renewed conflict in Nagorno Karabakh in 2020, the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi was hit twice by Azerbaijani forces. In December, Human Rights Watch concluded that the attack was intentional, constituting a war crime that should be investigated and prosecuted.

“The announcement of a ceasefire in early November formalized the territorial gains Azerbaijan had made militarily, and it set a staggered timeline for the cession of additional territories to Azerbaijan—raising concerns about the protection of various churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and other religious and cultural sites scattered throughout the region,” said the report.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reportedly gave assurances to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that the country would protect Christian churches in these areas. However, some sites, such as a cemetery situated alongside an Armenian church in Hadrut, have already been vandalized, said the report. In late November, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization reiterated a call for the protection of heritage sites in the area, and it proposed dispatching a preliminary field mission to produce an inventory of such sites “as a prerequisite for effective protection of the region’s heritage.”

According the report, religious freedom in Azerbaijan remains severely impeded by problematic legislation, particularly the country’s 2009 law “On Freedom of Religious Beliefs,” which the government has shown little interest in revising.

President Armen Sarkissian has concluded that a meeting he proposed to discuss the deepening political crisis in Armenia with the country’s major political players would not be feasible, given the varying responses his office has received about the invitation.

“Taking into account that the My Step and the Bright Armenia parliamentary factions have accepted the President’s invitation for a meeting, the Prosperous Armenia faction and the Homeland Salvation Movement proposed their own agenda for the meeting and presented conditions, at this moment meeting around one table does not seem feasible, a statement issued by the president’s office late Friday.

In addition to the aforementioned participants cited in the statement, the president had also invited Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who did not respond to Sarkissian’s proposal.

“President Armen Sarkissian will continue his efforts. He is ready to have separate meetings both with those invited, as well as with members of parliament not included in the factions of the National Assembly, with the representatives of different extra-parliamentary political forces,” said the Friday statement.

“These meetings will provide an opportunity, once again, to hear everyone’s views, to further clarify positions, and to formulate a working agenda based on results,” said the president’s office. “The President of the Republic reaffirms his conviction that the only way to resolve differences is through negotiations and dialogue, and that everything must be done to keep the country from tremors.”