Azerbaijan's prosecution of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) President Arayik Harutyunyan is aimed at concealing Baku's own war crimes, misleading the international community and intimidating the peaceful population of Artsakh, the Human Rights Defenders of Armenia and Karabakh, Armen Tatoyan and Gegham Stepanyan, said in a statement on Thursday, February 17.

"The Azerbaijani authorities have always pursued a policy of isolating Artsakh from the outside world, concealing human rights violations and war crimes against peace by falsifying facts. In doing so, they continue to grossly violate the absolute international requirements of human rights and humanitarian law. The practice of targeting Armenia’s, Artsakh’s, as well as international public figures, experts and journalists; blackmailing and persecuting them with so-called blacklists is the best proof that the calls and statements of the Azerbaijani authorities about peace are false, are veiled to the outside world with the purpose of concealing their real intentions," the two said in a statement.

"In reality, for years a policy of sponsoring hatred and hostility towards Armenians has been carried out with ethnic and religious pillars as two main grounds, with deep intolerance.

"In fact, a genocidal policy has been carried out, which is still going on. Even in the education system there is a policy of hatred and enmity towards Armenians, ensuring similar reproduction in the future, the spread of hatred in the society (based on facts)."

According to Tatoyan and Stepanyan, such a policy is the source that nurtured and encouraged the atrocities and torture by the Azerbaijani armed forces against the civilian population of Armenia and Artsakh; the ethnic cleansing of the civilian population during the 44-day Artsakh war, with various armed attacks and criminal acts before and after that war.

"These are the Azerbaijani authorities that are directly responsible for war crimes against humanity, including destruction of almost all civilian communities in Artsakh, using terrorists and mercenaries to deliberately target, kill 80 and injure 165 civilians, torture Armenian captives; for mutilation of the killed servicemen’s bodies; for depriving the 40,000 civilian population of Artsakh of their homeland and houses, for forcibly displacing them, for desecrating the Armenian historical and cultural monuments in Artsakh, for vandalizing them," the statement said.

"The Azerbaijani authorities are responsible for the internationally unacceptable armed attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, which paralyzed healthcare systems of Armenia and Artsakh and resulted in sharp increase in deaths.

"In the same way, by initiating criminal cases against various public figures, human rights defenders and journalists (including international ones), they tried to cover up the atrocities committed and future atrocities against the peaceful Armenian population of Artsakh."