Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC), today chaired a congressional hearing highlighting the continued plight of ethnic Armenians on the first anniversary of the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

            “Azerbaijan’s genocidal blockade and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh last year was a monstrous injustice,” said Smith, who noted that despite its egregious human rights violations, Azerbaijan is slated to host the United Nations international climate change summit COP29 in November.

            “Ethnic Armenians continue to have a right to live in peace and freedom in Nagorno-Karabakh according to their faith and traditions,” said Smith, who chaired two congressional hearings last year in June and early September as the human rights crisis escalated.

            “We must defend the human rights of the ethnic Armenians who are now political prisoners or prisoners of war in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the cultural heritage of Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Smith, who personally met with Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev in 2015 to press him on his human rights record and noted that many ethnic Azerbaijanis are also suffering under his regime.

            Smith’s TLHRC hearing—entitled “Human Rights in Azerbaijan Since the Fall of Nagorno-Karabakh”—featured a panel of human rights experts, including Gegham Stepanyan, Human Rights Defender for the Republic of Artsakh; Professor Adam T. Smith, Co-Director of Caucasus Heritage Watch at Cornell University; Kate Watters, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Crude Accountability; and Sharmagh Mardi, Supervising Lawyer at the Center for Truth & Justice; Van Krikorian, Co-Chair of the Armenian Assembly of America; and Andrea J. Prasow, Executive Director of Freedom Now.

            “The realization that you are leaving your home for good is an inexplicable feeling,” said Stepanyan. “When you realize that you need to leave behind everything that makes up your identity and head towards the unknown, where no one is even waiting for you and you don't know what will happen next—this is the greatest human tragedy. People left their homes, graves, and the Homeland, where they had a happy life, just to save their physical existence.”

            “The U.S. government and international community have yet to respond to Azerbaijan’s policy of cultural erasure which began in 1997 in the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan,” said Cornell Professor Adam Smith, who noted his academic research group has documented the near complete erasure—98 percent—of the region’s Armenian cultural heritage.

            “Churches and cemeteries across Nagorno-Karabakh have borne the brunt of cultural heritage abuses since 2020,” Professor Smith said. “In Spring 2024 alone, we documented three newly destroyed sites and nine more under immediate threat. The impacts to Armenian cultural heritage continue to arise out of large-scale earth moving conducted as part of regional redevelopment and roadbuilding schemes.”

            “Azerbaijani social media channels openly issued threats of abuse against civilians, ranging from bounties placed on missing children to the dissemination of images and reports of massacres targeting residents who refused to evacuate their homes, resulting in frantic civilian efforts to flee before the arrival of Azerbaijani military forces,” said Mardi.

            “Azerbaijan has accelerated its repression as we draw closer to its hosting of the UN climate conference known as COP29 in November,” said Prasow.

            “At a time when the world’s eyes are on Azerbaijan, and one might imagine the regime has every incentive to present itself as a government that respects the rule of law, democracy, and environmental protection, the Aliyev regime has doubled down on repression,” said Watters. “Its absolute lack of respect for civil society, for independent media, for the rule of law is stunning. Yet, the Azerbaijani government continues to enjoy a place in the international community, hosting COP 29, engaging in trade with Europe, including in natural gas, and participating in international events and meetings.”

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