As previously wrote HAQQIN.AZ, the International Commission for US Religious Freedom (USCIRF – US Commission On International Religious Freedom) published an annual report for 2021. Among the countries included in the special checklist turned out to be Azerbaijan.
In particular, the report compilers and their chief curator, Daniel Sarian Ashbakhyan, argue that “the beginning of the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh caused serious concern about the preservation and protection of Armenian religious places and other religious monuments. Azerbaijan fired twice with rockets Church of Kazan twice In Shusha. This can be considered a war crime … After the agreement of November 10, the media documented vandalism and the destruction of Armenian graves and cemeteries. ” And the fact that the objects of the Azerbaijani cultural and historical heritage, cemeteries and monuments were destroyed thirty years before that, the fact that the mosques turned into cattle bones were not seen.
Today, the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations has spread a statement regarding the Azerbaijani part of the Cemetery Destruction of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom of September 1, 2021.
The statement says: “The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom – USCIRF) published a report called” Cemetery Destruction “. Unfortunately, against the background of the real attitude of the Azerbaijani side to the historical and religious heritage, Including tombstone monuments, in the report, fabricated claims were put forward, which do not reflect the real situation that refer to false information distributed by Armenians. Despite the fact that the report covers the period after 2018, the section on Azerbaijan repeats the “Nakhchwan and Baku claims” The beginning of the 2000s, and the Vandalism of Armenians in relation to Azerbaijan cemeteries is mentioned superficially, and although the document has a separate subtitle called “Jewish cemeteries”, it did not include information about acts of vandalism against the memorial in memory of the victims Holocaust and Jewish cemeteries in Armenia in 2020 and 2021.
We declare that in general, no fact of the destruction of burials or cemeteries was not recorded for the history of independence of Azerbaijan. Even in the period of the 44-day Patriotic War, the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan did not cause strikes on civilian objects of the enemy, including the buildings of religious purposes. The fact was repeatedly confirmed by foreign journalists.