Hayk Mamijanyan, a member of the RA NA delegation to the PACE, gave a speech at the PACE’s winter session on January 26.
“Dear Colleagues,
The expression on your faces indicates that you predict that Armenians will now talk about Azerbaijani aggression, prisoners, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and the Azerbaijani delegation, in response, will burden you with false rebuttals. But let me explain why we have to speak out about the humanitarian disaster caused by the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the other topics mentioned above. Please take my words not as a political speech but as food for thought.
For example, some of us will visit a restaurant in Strasbourg after this session. Please keep in mind when choosing dinner that 120,000 people in Nagorno-Karabakh can only select between plain pasta or buckwheat, no vegetables, no fruit, and nothing else.
And when you, dear colleagues, reach your comfortable and warm hotel rooms to hide from the cold wind and watch the news, please remember that 120,000 Armenians are without gas and electricity for 6-8 hours a day.
For those of you who have children, please imagine what you would do if someone prevented your child from getting an education. Suppose it was so cold in the classrooms that schools had to close for almost a month.
And if any of you have a headache at the end of the day, please remember that 120,000 Armenians in Artsakh do not have these medicines.
And when Mr. Seidov starts talking about self-proclaimed activists exercising their right to freedom of speech, even though the phrase “freedom of speech in Azerbaijan” is itself an oxymoron, please remember that Azerbaijan is 104th on the Yale University Environmental Performance Index. I don’t know that Has there ever been a mass demonstration or environmental protest in Azerbaijan? Although a little while ago, we witnessed how the representative of the Azerbaijani delegation questioned French democracy.
You can imagine that after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, Europe was where families and relatives were separated. In the 21st century, children will not be able to meet their parents for more than a month and a half. But don’t suddenly make a wrong opinion. We cannot wait 30 years. Lachine Corridor must be unblocked now. And as the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide announced a few weeks ago. “The world must act immediately to prevent the second Armenian Genocide.”
Thank you, and I urge you to vote in favor of the amendments proposed by the Armenian delegation,” said Hayk Mamijanyan.
