Ruling party marks 22nd anniversary of Khojaly genocide
By Jamila Babayeva
The ruling New Azerbaijan Party held an event on February 24 on the occasion of the 22nd anniversary of the Khojaly genocide.
MPs, representatives of the intelligentsia, youth and community attended the event titled "Khojaly genocide and principle of international justice".
The issue of the Khojaly genocide has been recently raised by the state agencies, parliament, and NGOs in various countries and international organizations, Parliament's Vice Speaker Bahar Muradova said at the event, adding that appropriate decisions have been made in this regard.
Muradova stressed that Khojaly residents were killed by Armenians, just because they were Azerbaijani people.
"We have raised this issue at various levels," she added. "Armenia continues violating the norms of the international law."
Muradova said the international circles urging Azerbaijan to move towards a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are not exerting any pressure on Armenia.
For his part, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign
Affairs and Inter-parliament
Parliament's First Vice Speaker Ziyafet Askarov said for his part that the perpetrators of the Khojaly genocide must be punished.
He said although the 22nd anniversary of the Khojaly tragedy is being marked, the perpetrators of this crime still have not been punished.
"These persons must be brought to international legal responsibility in order to restore justice. The Armenian head has stated at the Council of Europe that they committed the Khojaly genocide. But there is no reaction to this. We will be avenged, when he is punished. Revenge in this case means the punishment of the perpetrators of this crime," Askarov said.
He believes that the Khojaly genocide is a crime not only against Azerbaijani people, but also against humanity, since it is fully consistent with the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted on December 9, 1948.
"According to this convention, any crime against people based on their ethnicity is called genocide. And in Khojaly people were killed just because they were Azerbaijanis," Askarov said.
He went on to add that there are also resolutions on Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, adopted by the UN Security Council, the EU, the Council of Europe, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and individual states are gradually adopting resolutions on recognition of the Khojaly genocide.
"I think that process has already begun as Azerbaijan has already broken the information blockade in this issue and the world knows that there was such a tragedy and there is a need to give a definitive assessment of this genocide. The next stage is the issue of an international criminal trial of the criminals," Askarov said.
On February 25-26, 1992, the town of Khojaly, the second largest town in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, came under intense fire from the towns of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by the Armenian armed forces.
613 civilians including 106 women, 70 elderly, and 83 children were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 civilians were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both their parents, and 130 children lost one parent.
Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, and the fate of 150 of them remains unknown. Civilians were shot at close range, scalped, and burned alive. Some had their eyes gouged out and others were beheaded.