OIC fact-finding mission report on Azerbaijan's liberated territories adopted

The head of the Azerbaijani Ombudsman's Office, member of the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC IPHRC ) Aydin Safikhanli has attended the 18th session of the Commission in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Report informs.

The session discussed the current situation in implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals within the OIC countries, positive experiences in the field of human rights and reports on the results of fact-finding missions carried out under the Commission's mandate.

At the invitation of the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of Azerbaijan Sabina Aliyeva, a delegation led by the Chairman of the OIC IPHRC paid an official visit to Azerbaijan on September 22-26, 2021, to carry out a fact-finding mission in the areas destroyed as a result of rocket attacks targeting civilians and infrastructure in Azerbaijan's liberated lands and other areas, and prepared a special report as a result of the visit.

The report was discussed at the 18th OIC IPHRC session in Jeddah. The report covers numerous facts of war crimes, gross violations of human rights and freedoms, destruction of national-cultural, architectural, historical and religious monuments, including mosques, looting and insults in the liberated and other territories of Azerbaijan. The document assessed these facts as a violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.

The report prepared by the OIC IPHRC recommended the establishment of an international human rights monitoring center by the UN, the OSCE and other regional organizations to investigate human rights violations committed by the Armenian military-political leadership and provide an appropriate legal assessment. It also recommended finding missing Azerbaijanis since the First Karabakh War under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, establishing a multilateral coordination mechanism to provide psychological assistance to their families, funding the projects, which support the return of Azerbaijani IDPs to their homes, by the OIC, the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.

The report was adopted unanimously by the members of the Commission and included in the agenda of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers Summit to be held in March 2022 in Islamabad.