Foreign

Home page

Foreign

European Court of Human Rights to hear a case concerning Azerbaijani IDPsâ€™ complaint against Armenia on September 15

31 August 2010 11:33 (UTC +04:00)

In 1989 the NKAO was approximately 75% ethnic Armenian and 25% ethnic Azeri.
The applicants Elkhan Chiragov, Adishirin Chiragov, Ramiz Gebrayilov, Akif Hasanof, Fekhreddin Pashayev and Qaraca Gabrayilov are six Azerbaijani nationals who were born in 1950, 1947, 1960, 1959, 1956 and 1940 respectively. Mr Gabrayilov is now deceased and his son has continued the application on his fatherâ€™s behalf. All but Mr Hasanof now live in Baku.
The applicants state that they are Azerbaijani Kurds who lived in the district of Lachin, in Azerbaijan, which forms a corridor less than ten kilometres wide between Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (â€œthe Armenian SSRâ€). The great majority of Lachinâ€™s population was Kurds and Azeris. Due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the applicants were forced to flee on 17 May 1992. They have not been able to return to their homes and properties since because of Armenian occupation.
The applicants complain in particular about the loss of their properties in Lachin, as well as various other possessions such as cars, livestock and handmade carpets. They also complain that there is no prospect for them in the foreseeable future to be able to use, sell, bequeath, mortgage or develop their property as the Armenian Government continues to refuse to allow them to return to Lachin. Nor have the Armenian authorities made any attempt to compensate them for their losses or to provide a remedy to persons displaced from the occupied territories. They rely on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention.
Finally, the applicants claim, under Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in conjunction with all the above Articles, that, if they had been ethnic Armenian and Christian, they would not have been forcibly displaced from their homes by the Armenian-backed Karabakh forces and that their property rights would have been recognised and their complaints investigated.
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 6 April 2005. On 9 March 2010 the Chamber to which the case was assigned relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber.