Speaking at the event, the Dean of the Thomas Jefferson Law School Joan Bullock noted that Black January played a significant role in the struggle of the Azerbaijani people for freedom and independence.
Speaking afterwards, the contributor of the Consulate General Orkhan Rustamli stated that the Black January tragedy turned a heroic page in Azerbaijan’s history paving a way towards the nation’s eventual independence and freedom in 1991 following the collapse of the USSR. He mentioned that Azerbaijan’s National Leader Heydar Aliyev, who would later become Founder and President of modern Azerbaijan, fiercely condemned the bloodshed while in Moscow.
In his remarks, the American journalist Raoul Lowery Contreras, author of the books “Murder in the Mountains. War Crime in Khojaly and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict” and “The Armenian Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, stressed that the Black January was a military aggression and crime committed by the Communist regime to suppress the national liberty movement in Azerbaijan and destroy the freedom spirit of Azerbaijani people.
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