Heads of religious confessions condemn Armenian vandalism

By Laman Ismayilova

The heads of religious confessions in Azerbaijan have released a joint statement condemning the destruction of religious sites by Armenian vandals in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The statement was made by Chairman of the Caucasian Muslims Office Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, Archbishop of Baku and Azerbaijan Alexander, Head of the Mountain Jews Community in Azerbaijan Milikh Yevdayev, Chair of Baku Religious Community of European Jews Alexander Sharovski,  Chief Rabbi of Azerbaijani Ashkenazi Jews Shneor Segal, Head of the Albanian-Udi community Robert Mobili.

As a result of Armenian vandalism, out of 67 mosques in Karabakh, 63 have been razed to the ground and the remaining three have been severely damaged, the Caucasian Muslims Office reported.

"We, the leaders of Muslim, Orthodox, Albanian-Udi and Jewish confessions in Azerbaijan, express the wishes of the believers and appeal to the heads of state and government, heads of international organizations, religious leaders and the world community. After 30 years of struggle to restore its territorial integrity, the re-waving of the tricolour state flag of Azerbaijan over Karabakh lands means the victory of historical justice and stability in our multinational and multi-religious country," the statement said.

"Azerbaijan and its President His Excellency Mr Ilham Aliyev have been pursuing a peace policy for many years, demonstrating consistency in the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of international law, and decisions and resolutions of international organizations. Over these years, political talks have failed to produce results, and the UN resolutions calling for an unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijan’s territories have not been implemented. So, Azerbaijani people went to war in order to restore the country’s territorial integrity. This war resulted in the triumph of international law and justice. Along with Muslims, there are Christians and Jews among those who became martyrs for the territorial integrity of our country," the message said.  

The heads of religious confessions emphasized that the world community must know that not only has Armenia committed ethnic cleansing, genocide and occupation against Azerbaijan, but also has pursued a policy of aggression against the diverse cultural and spiritual heritage of the country. 

They stressed that Armenia's state policy based on mono-ethnicity aimed at leaving only Armenian traces in the occupied territories. Armenia, which has created a society intolerant towards other nations and religions, has tried to completely erase the ancient Albanian, Orthodox, Muslim religious and cultural heritage that historically existed on the occupied territories of multi-ethnic and multi-religious Azerbaijan. It has either completely destroyed our cultural and spiritual heritage or misappropriated – Armenianized and Gregorianized – them by falsifying their history and origins.

Unlike Armenia, thousands of citizens of Armenian descent live in peace in Azerbaijan, the capital Baku and various regions, and the Armenian church and its library in the centre of Baku have been renovated and protected by the state. Mosques, temples and cemeteries, historical monuments, museums, libraries on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan have been destroyed and looted; Caucasian Albanian Christian temples and Russian Orthodox churches have been Gregorianized; mosques have been turned into barns and subjected to unprecedented insults such as using them to keep animals forbidden in Islam. 

Armenia has completely demolished the historical Azerbaijani religious sites on its territory – Yerevan’s Shah Abbas, Sardar, Haji Novruz Ali and other mosques, and changed the architectural style of the Blue Mosque. 

Not content with destroying only Muslim mosques, Armenia has usurped the Gregorian Orthodox Church in Shusha, the Albanian-Udi temples in other districts, and completely destroyed the Khojavand Orthodox Church. The main goal of the aggressor state, which has been cherishing an illusion of creating a “Great Armenia”, in committing such acts of vandalism was to annihilate both our historical past and our spiritual memory in the lands where we have lived for millennia," the statement said. 

Having pursued aggressive policies for years, the Armenian regime has ignored the norms of international law and international humanitarian law has committed environmental crimes on the occupied territories through fires, use of phosphorus bombs, poisonous substances and mines. The atrocities committed while withdrawing from the territories of Azerbaijan, real facts of pillaging tangible and spiritual heritage sites, theft of artworks, forests and civilian objects being set ablaze are being extensively covered by global media.

The heads of religious confessions stressed that Armenia's actions aimed at destroying and falsifying the religious and cultural heritage of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious people Azerbaijan represent a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions, as well as an attack on the entire culture of the mankind and world heritage.

Upholding multicultural traditions, the Azerbaijani government considers the protection of cultural and spiritual values a priority and makes an invaluable contribution to the restoration of historical sites, mosques and churches within the country and elsewhere around the world, including the Vatican, France, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Known as one of the world centres of multiculturalism, Azerbaijan has hosted a number of prestigious international events promoting inter-civilizational and inter-religious dialogue, including the Second Baku Summit of World Religious Leaders in November 2019. During the visit to Azerbaijan in October 2016, Pope Francis praised the cooperation and dialogue between different cultures and religions in the country.

"Now, Armenia conducts fabricated religious propaganda against Azerbaijan, claims that Azerbaijan is taking steps to destroy religious and cultural sites on our liberated territories and attempts to portray its own provocations as those of our country. Despite all these real facts, Armenia’s continued hypocritical statements, fake news and false information depicting itself as a suffering nation cause legitimate anger of the Azerbaijani people and representatives of all faiths living in our tolerant and multicultural country," they said. 

"The Azerbaijani president has repeatedly stated in his addresses and interviews that all religious and cultural sites and places of worship on the liberated territories will be restored, every person’s faith will be respected and peaceful coexistence will be ensured as is the case in other parts of Azerbaijan. As the leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, Mountain Jews, Albanian-Udi Christian, Ashkenazi-European Jews and other religious communities, who have lived prosperously in Azerbaijan throughout our history and freely performed our religious rites, we support this peaceful policy of Azerbaijan and extend our blessing to efforts aimed at restoring our history and culture. We, the leaders of religious confessions in Azerbaijan, appeal to the heads of state and government of foreign countries, heads of international organizations, religious leaders and the world community to support the establishment of peace, tranquillity and coexistence in our country and the region where we live!" they concluded. 

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