On the eve of the 25th commemoration of the Genocide committed against the town of Khojaly

APPEAL

To the World’s religious Leaders,

Parliaments, International Organizations,

The European Court of Human Rights.

In the Name of the Great Creator!

“Almighty Allah has commanded not to discord the Earth,

 perfectly created for Humankind, not to kill, not to shed blood,

not to kill the Life and the Human, generated by the Creator”

Tafeer of the verse 85, Surah Al-Araf, The Holy Quran

On the eve of the 25th commemoration of the Genocide committed against the town of Khojaly, located in Karabakh, Azerbaijan, we reiterate our appeal to the entire International Community, irrespective of religion, language, race or nationality.

The Historical fact evidences that on the night of February 25th to 26th, 1992, the Armenian invaders, supported by their protectors, attacked suddenly the town of Khojaly and committed ruthless massacre of peaceful unarmed civilians. That night, the armed Armenian bandits brutally killed 613 people, among them the elderly, the children, and the pregnant women. Khojaly was razed to ground, 150 persons were missing, 1275 people captured to be severely tortured, unthinkable outrage was committed on the bodies of brutally murdered people.

At its core, the Khojaly tragedy is on a par with the Holocaust, Guernica and Katlyn genocides. As result of Armenian aggression, Azerbaijani people were subjected to ethnic cleansing, physical and moral terror in their own homeland. Armenian extremists occupied 20 per cent of our territories, banished more than one million of our compatriots from their native home places, and destroyed our historical, religious and cultural monuments and relics, committing acts of vandalism in the occupied Karabakh lands. The intentional act of genocide committed in Khojaly became culmination point of Armenian atrocities.

Although 25 years have passed, the crimes of Armenian terrorists remain unpunished, and the four well-known UN Security Council resolutions unimplemented. Despite objective approach of a number of Countries in the World and International Organizations to reiterated appeals of Azerbaijan to the International Community and acknowledgement of genocide in Khojaly by them, unfortunately, there also are those who neglect this horrific crime.

At the heart of acts of violence, terror and extremism, committed in the World today, are double standards and dangerous trends of racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, which appear in approach of some states, organizations and religious leaders to the existing problems. As long as acts of genocide, including the Khojaly tragedy, will remain without an adequate assessment because such an approach, this will provoke new humanitarian disasters, crimes against humankind, and create grounds for further acts of genocide, terrorism, extremism and separatism over the World.

Dismissive approach towards this aggression against Azerbaijan, the subsequent problem of one million refugees and displaced people, and impunity of Armenian extremists after the banishment of our compatriots from their own homes, is encouraging the Armenian side not only to continue their provocations, but also to capture our compatriots, who pay visits to the graves of their relatives, resting in their home lands, to torture them inhumanly, even to ignore the requirements of the International Conventions on the return of the bodies of the killed persons.

We, the leaders of the various religious faiths, living in Azerbaijan, believe that the territorial integrity of our Country will be certainly restored with the efforts, led by the Supreme Commander of Azerbaijan, and we offer up our prayers for that. We greatly honor the blessed memory of those who lost their lives in the name of liberation of Karabakh, and those who died martyrs in Khojaly. Each of us, who wants peace, happiness, security and prosperity for the peoples of the World, has a sacred duty to the Almighty Creator, in the name of Conscience and in the name of Humanity - to achieve Justice.

Appealing once again to the Religious Leaders, Parliaments, International Organizations and the European Court of Human Rights, we call them to give a principled political and legal assessment of the aggression and the acts of atrocities committed by Armenian extremists against the Azerbaijani people, to recognize the crimes committed in Khojaly as Genocide.

May the Almighty Creator bless all of us in our good deeds, and help us to distinguish the truth from the false, and to be fair.

AMEN!

Sheikh-ul Islam Allahshukur Pashazade

The Chairman of the Caucasian Muslims’ Board

Alexandr

 The Archbishop of Baku and Azerbaijan

Melih Yevdayev

 The Head of the Community of Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan

Robert Mobili

The Head of the Albanian-Udi Christian Community in Azerbaijan