The event focused on the Azerbaijani civilians taken hostage by Armenia, AzVision.az reports.  

Durign the event, the Azerbaijani delegation provided information on the plight of the Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev and their life-threatening desperate situation. Given all this, the participatns adopted a declaration to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the PACE and the Assembly’s Commissioner for Human Rights.

The declaration was undersigned by European parliamentarians and posted on PACE’s website.

The document calls for an immediate and unconditional release of Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev.

“11 July 2019 will mark five years since the Azerbaijani civilians Mr Dilgam Asgarov and Mr Shahbaz Guliyev  were taken hostage while visiting the graves of their relatives in the occupied Kalbajar region of Azerbaijan. They represent a community of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis forcibly displaced from their native lands as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” read the declaration. 

“We are deeply concerned that all calls to release them have been rejected so far. We acknowledge the fact that in 2015 their application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights. As we were reminded at the event hosted by the delegation of Azerbaijan to the Parliamentary Assembly on 25 June, the humanitarian case of Mr Asgarov and Mr Guliyev deserves a strong reaction from the international community to put an end to their life-threatening desperate situation. We therefore urge the Assembly, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the Commissioner for Human Rights to seize this matter to ensure their immediate and unconditional release, in order to restore their violated rights. We also look forward to seeing the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights concerning their case,” the document said.  

More about: PACE   Dilgam-Asgarov   Shahbaz-Guliyev