Western Azerbaijan Community

As COP29 approaches, centrally orchestrated attacks on Azerbaijan are also intensifying. The documents adopted by the Dutch Parliament on October 10 and the position of the Dutch Foreign Minister during the discussion of these documents are absolutely unacceptable.

First, the wording contained in these documents is slander. The well-known individuals detained in Azerbaijan are not prisoners of war, but are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Therefore, calling them prisoners of war is disrespectful to the law.

Second, the claims that the Armenian cultural heritage in Azerbaijan is allegedly under threat are also an unfounded fabrication. As the recently completed restoration of the Gazanchi Church in the Azerbaijani city of Shusha shows, not a single “Armenian monument” in Azerbaijan is under threat. Azerbaijan has ensured the protection of all cultural heritage, regardless of its religious and ethnic affiliation.

This and numerous other anti-Azerbaijani documents adopted by the Dutch Parliament recently are openly biased and demonstrate discrimination against Azerbaijanis. Like France, Lithuania and Canada, which pursue an Azerbaijanophobic policy, the Netherlands has also demonstrated indifference to the ethnic cleansing of a million Azerbaijanis by Armenia, the destruction of hundreds of mosques and other cultural monuments in Armenia, the damage to the cultural heritage of Azerbaijan in the once occupied territories, the destruction of hundreds of cities and villages.

Finally, we would like to emphasize that the Netherlands, a country with a bloody colonial past, where Islamophobia reigns, which is responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica and refuses to fulfill its obligations to decolonize in such maritime territories as Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, Saba, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, has no moral right to talk about international law and human rights.

We, the Western Azerbaijan Community, demand that the government and parliament of the Netherlands stop accusations and attacks against Azerbaijan, stop racial discrimination against Azerbaijanis and respect the right of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia to return to their homes.