Azerbaijan must be held accountable for cultural and religious destruction

On December 15, 2005, the government of Azerbaijan orchestrated the final demolition of the historic Armenian cemetery in Djulfa, an ancient Armenian city now located in Azerbaijan, Radio Free Canada says in an article devoted to the fifth anniversary of the destruction of the Armenian cemetery in Old Jugha.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the final blow to the 10,000 intricately hand carved khachkars (stone crosses) which were erected between the 6th through the 17th centuries, says the article. By 1998, following systemic destruction of the khachkars by Azerbaijani authorities over decades, only 2,000 remained.

By December 15, 2005, the final destruction was complete. Approximately 200 Azerbaijani soldiers amassed at the Nakhichevan-Iran border to desecrate the remaining grave markers at the Djulfa Armenian cemetery. The cemetery has since been replaced with an Azerbaijani military training base. Other Armenian sacred and historic sites in Azerbaijan have faced the same fate such as the Pombloz or Hovivi (Shepherd's) Church built in the 16th century which was destroyed along with its cemetery in 2002.
On December 5, 2010, the American Association for the Advancement of Science published a case study titled "High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and the Destruction of Cultural Artifacts in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan". This recent report further documents the destruction through clear satellite imagery.

Martha Hall Findlay, MP for Willowdale, and a friend of the Canadian Armenian community, made a statement in the House of Commons earlier on the day marking the fifth anniversary of the destruction of the khachkars by Azerbaijan describing it as "a significant loss of history and culture". In her remarks, she also commended the work of the Armenian-Canadian community.

Despite the photographic and videotaped evidence, the government of Azerbaijan has since denied their atrocities. The Armenian National Committee of Toronto calls on all Canadians to demand that UNESCO hold Azerbaijan officially accountable for this cultural destruction. Vahan Ajamian, Chair of the Armenian National Committee of Toronto said, "Recent decades have unfortunately been marked by the government of Azerbaijan's aggression toward Armenians which continues to unfold today. This hostility has become the source of massacres, mass deportations, and cultural and religious destruction in the country. The international community must condemn the Azerbaijani government's acts of aggression against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh which threaten regional peace and stability. Inaction against such harmful activities will only encourage similar destruction around the world."

Azerbaijan's aggressive history, combined with regular threats by President Ilham Aliyev to restart the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, merely cement our view that Nagorno-Karabakh's independence must be universally recognized and that a return to Azerbaijani rule jeopardizes the lives of the Armenians living there and is therefore unacceptable. Furthermore, governments around the world must condemn Azerbaijan for the continued display of religious intolerance, and aggression in the Caucasus region.