Naira Zohrabyan asks Europe's female leaders to help return POWs from Baku

PanARMENIAN.Net - Lawmaker from the Prosperous Armenia party Naira Zohrabyan has asked female leaders of Europe to facilitate the return of a Lebanese Armenian woman named Maral Najaryan, who was captured and is being held by Azerbaijan.

The European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that Najarian is imprisoned in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. MP Tatevik Hayrapetyan said in early January that the woman was kidnapped in Shushi by Azerbaijani Armed Forces on November 10. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed, meanwhile, that Armenians captured by Azeri troops after the completion of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh are not prisoners of war but "terrorists" who he said will be prosecuted.

"Azerbaijan has already officially confirmed the capture of Maral, and according to [politician] David Shahnazaryan, she is being kept in the Gobustan prison [in the outskirts of Baku]," Zohrabyan wrote in a Facebook post.

"I have appealed to the female leaders of Europe, all structures dealing with human rights and women's issues, so that they force Azerbaijan to return Maral and all other prisoners of war․"