The heads of Azerbaijan’s religious confessions have appealed to the world’s religious leaders, parliaments, international organizations and European Court of Human Rights in connection with the 23rd commemoration of the Khojaly genocide

Baku, 23.02.2015

Expressing the will and the feelings of millions of the people of Azerbaijan, on the eve of the 23rd commemoration of the Genocide committed against the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly, we appeal to the World Community, regardless of the religious, language, race or ethnic identity,” the statement says. “No any Nation, no Religion can justify those outrage cruel crimes that are incompatible with universal values as violence, murder and aggression.”

It is a Historical fact that over the night from 25th to 26th of February, 1992, thousands of unarmed and defenseless peaceful people of Khojaly were unexpectedly and brutally attacked by Armenian aggressors. 613 civilians were murdered with exceptional cruelty, with no mercy even to children, elderly people and pregnant women. As a result, Khojaly was wiped out of the ground, while 150 people were missing, 1275 civilians captured and severely tortured, unthinkable atrocity was committed on the bodies of brutally murdered people.

Armenian extremists, intermittently committing ethnic cleansings as well as acts of physical and moral terror against the people of Azerbaijan, have invaded 20 percent of our territories, banished more than one million Azerbaijanis from their home places. They carried out acts of vandalism in the Land of Karabakh to destroy our historical, religious and cultural monuments and relics. The premeditated genocide committed in Khojaly became a culmination of all these atrocities, the statement says.

Unfortunately, despite it has been over 20 years since adoption of UN Security Council Resolutions calling for the unconditional withdrawal of Armenian invaders from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, they did not obeyed till today, while the Armenian terrorists remain unpunished for the crimes they have committed. In its turn, such impunity provokes recurrence of new crimes.

Today, a number of the countries and international organizations have already recognized Khojaly tragedy as the act of Genocide. Azerbaijan's dedicated policy on reinstatement of the verity and the historic justice, as well as special activities carried out with the support of the World`s Azerbaijanis and various Public Organizations, including the "Justice for Khojaly" campaign, are playing an important role in spreading the Truth at the international level, the statement says.

Above all, despite a whole century have passed over those occurrences which were never been supported on international level by real historical facts, but Armenian aggressors are still trying to politicize them by imposing their false propaganda of the genocide. Efforts to impose that fictitious ‘Armenian genocide’, to present the genocide executors as "genocide victims" and commemorate anniversaries of that false genocide are nothing, but falsification of the History for political reasons. Those, who patronize those false claims should know, that sooner or later the Verity will vanquish and the Justice will be set!

We, the Religious Leaders of different faith, keep the dear memory of all people fallen killed in Karabakh, the integral part of our homeland Azerbaijan , as well as in the town of Khojaly, and wish Peace, Prosperity and Fortune to all the People of the World,” the statement says. “Each one of us, we have a sacred duty before The Lord and the Mankind to achieve the Triumph of Justice. Therefore, once again we appeal to the World's Religious Leaders, the Parliaments and the International Organizations, to the European Court of Human Rights and call to stop the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, to give a principled political and legal assessment of the criminal acts, to punish the committers of the crimes and to recognize the Khojaly massacre as the Genocide.

May the Great Creator help us in fair deeds!

The appeal was made by Sheikh-ul Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh, the Chairman of Caucasus Muslims` Board, Alexander, the Archbishop of Baku and Azerbaijan, Melih Yevdayev, the Head of the Community of Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan, the Ordinary Vladimir Fekete, the Head of the Catholic Community in Azerbaijan.